2026

 So, anyway, yeah.

Telling myself to write, publicly, with some form of consistency. I journal, privately, everyday, but I could also just "share". I might try to split the difference. I write how I think I talk. I hope to type how I write.

Immediately, here's what's happening: New Year's Day, 2026. It's the evening. I just turned on Fantastic Planet because I'd like to believe it's a tradition, with no concrete origin. I think a movie like this or Holy Mountain, etc, is a good thing to watch on the first day. Something for the spirit. I watched it on this day last year, followed by David Lynch: The Art Life, while I painted something I ended up never finishing. It never felt right to finish it, for a couple of reasons.

Right now, I'm watching the movie on mute, as I type. My sister is cooking dinner and she put on a record, so the music is kind of a backdrop. My niece, Nicolette, is sitting in her high chair, watching my sister cook while she snacks on some kind of novelty, shaped macaroni. I'm not fully engaging with the movie because it's playing as a ritual. It's still visually appealing enough that it's not like I'm not watching it.

I'm not holding myself to an obligation, but I feel like there's not enough contexts in which I could be as "open" as I want to be. I mean. I could go back to just drawing pictures, and hoping that expresses something indescribable. It still seems like no one "gets it". But, if I write somewhere where there's no doubt in what I mean (even though people who understand me still skew information), then there ought to not be any ambiguity. Eh. I doubt I'm going to make any grand statements, though. This is just the kind of thought I tend to have before boarding a plane or something. Thoughts like "if I crash, no one will have known what my favorite color was," etc. And that actually drives me nuts, but ultimately I accept it. It's whatever. No one has to know what my favorite color is, although I do expect everyone to know what my favorite color is and how much that means. But it also doesn't matter. I guess the beauty is in not fully knowing any one full thing about a person.

I don't know how I'll know when I'm finished writing here. I'm speaking from a different voice, knowing 2 people might attentively read the whole thing. Already, I'm noticing my themes appearing in my writing, though. I'm almost certain I've written before about this whole fatalist thing of people only knowing one "part" of you and the people who outlive you will be conflicted as to which one of those parts of you is the definitive one. Ah. Well. I can't stress myself out about that. Plus, honestly, I might feel differently about that now, after the loss of my father. Not to brush past that, but I could go on about that for a while, and I'm not sure that needs to be on my "public" thing, here.

How about this-- maybe I'll talk about 2025, going into 2026. The obvious topic.

Happy about getting a niece. She's cool. For the past few months, I've been babysitting her every Sunday and some Tuesdays. She's happy.

Lost a lot of people in 2025. Cousins. My father. An uncle, most recently. Again, I don't want to brush past that but also how do I even begin to write a proper tribute? Been conflicted because there's never a "right time". Still, I'll talk about that later.

I'm glad I also worked on some "real" animation projects. I don't feel like an animator, and it's still not quite what I'm going for. Regardless, I am appreciative of the fact that some skills learned over time have resulted in me contributing work to other artists.

I went to Germany, again. Maybe I'll post the pictures here. Been trying to find the proper place to show them because I really like the details. It was a good trip. Passed through London to get there and on my way out. Spent a night in London. Hm. Maybe I'll tell that story alongside the photos.

I don't know. Those are the "highlights" I guess. Notable moments. Pretty "even" as far as good things vs. bad, maybe.

Looking forward, I essentially have the same trips planned. Brief visits in Chicago in January and February. Both trips are "anchored" around shows I want to see. Last year I went for a week, intending to see Alan Resnick, but his show got moved to April and I ended up missing that one. Still, that same week, I got to revisit the Chicago Puppetry Festival, and this upcoming trip falls on the first week of that. So far, I've only gone to their exhibit and a couple of symposiums but I want to attend an actual show. No one I know is, like, "into" that stuff, or not enough to go there with me. I think the magic of it is how I sort of stumbled upon it. Foggy, cold, dimly lit, surreal puppet exhibition at the Fine Arts Building. Impossible to replicate what made it cool. We'll see what happens, I guess. It wasn't quite as mystical this second time around though, but still an experience. I think what that means is that it would just be cooler to see someone else witness it for the first time. Oh Well. This time around, I'm planning to see Cate le Bon. Idk. Life makes fun of you for having plans, so, who knows? That's not me being pessimistic though.

I'm planning to go in February, literally to see The Fiery Furnaces, one of my favorite bands. I've listened to them since high school, around the time I had a friend of mine put a bunch of songs onto my iPod shuffle. Not sure if their music was on their but it was the same person who showed them to me. I say "favorite" in the sense that, after repeating some of their albums for an entire summer at a time or something, I'll occasionally run it back every few months, etc. (I didn't phrase that carefully enough, but I'm sure the occurrence is common enough that I don't need to explain how listening to music works). I don't know who else listens to them, and I couldn't fairly "recommend" them because it would feel weird. Hard to explain. Still, I think it's worth the trip. Last year, though, the same trip was to see another comedian. Again, I use the shows and the cheapness of winter flights to Chicago as my excuse to visit. Oddly, though, this visit was the last time I saw my dad, so I appreciate that I went.

I'm also planning to go back to Germany, hopefully for a slightly longer visit, in May. Last year, I was hoping, in addition to obviously spending time with Mom, to find my way to Berlin to kind of check out the Pictoplasma, um, festival(?). It probably wouldn't have made sense though, since it's a ticketed thing (I think) and I also hadn't even submitted any animation or anything, and ideally one might submit work to a festival or buy a ticket to attend something like that. I was just hoping to kinda show up, so it's just as well that I didn't make it, you know? I just do things for the exploration of an idea, I guess. This time around, I kinda plan on doing the same thing. Maybe submit something if I could finish something (kind of bold of me to think I could just 'submit' something all willy-nilly like I even kinda know what I'm doing. (Not calling myself bold, I'm just speaking some kind of reason into my daydreams.)) or idk buy admission. Maybe I'll meet people. Maybe I'll stare quietly and panic. Time to break some kind of pattern. Again, either way, I will have tried, and I will still have visited my mom.

To whom it may concern, I'm not doing these things-- taking trips, etc-- just for "fun".

Anyway, yeah, I'm rambling. If this entry was worth anything, it was to kind of summarize and draw parallels between last year's first quarter and hopefully this year's.

I kind of feel good about writing this stuff, though. It barely scratches the surface of what I want to do with writing publicly (I could just say the word "blogging"). Other methods don't quite do the trick. Would anyone want to see this stuff in print? A handwritten letter? Whatever. We'll see what happens.

I mentioned a few things that deserve their own entry. Comes with the territory. I'm clearly trying to wrap this up. Nicolette is smiling and laughing. I just started playing MM.. FOOD on the record player and New Year's dinner's almost ready. I wanna keep typing, but nah.

More art, more painting, more drawing, more animation, more film and video, more performance, and more travel as a result and as a means! Seems no different than years before, so I hope I'm not trapping myself in an endless selfish loop. I hope I make some friends and lose less people!

(this took about 2 hours to write)