normally, i am energized by the New Year. i am a lover of lists, crossing things out and throwing them away. (Virgo rising) i love writing things down. i love projecting. i love obtainable challenges - 30 books, 50 movies, 1 hour at the gym, only once a week. in 2023 (stick with me here), i didn’t really complete any of my resolutions at all but i didn’t feel that bad about them. the resolutions were bigger than a year - especially a year like the last few where every time i felt like i could finally hold all the things i was carrying, they fell and i tripped and dropped them all. normally, i am good at laughing when i drop things but i didn’t feel like laughing or even getting up. a lot of the time, i just felt like sitting on the ground surrounded by all the things i dropped. some of my resolutions included:
do more alone
take a sign language class
read 30 books
make things
calm down
drink more water
go outside
in 2023, i read 23 (not the goal but serendipitous nonetheless) books and did not drink that much more water. i didn’t calm down. i didn’t take a class. (a bit of a lie - i did a rewatch of Cody Cook-Parrott’s Newsletter Class, which largely inspired me to be here) sometimes i did go outside. i thought i didn’t make many things besides some words on a Google Doc although in retrospect, amidst many big feelings, i had my first (and last?) solo show at AS220, a feat i sort of forgot about. another resolution on my list was ‘treat yourself’ which i unfortunately don’t think i am ever not doing, so that doesn’t count. i grieved 10 years without my dad and felt ok! i helped my mom start a business. i was not so bad but i was not so good either.
in 2024, i made some big changes in my career, started a new medication, went on a trip with my friends and started to feel like i could finally get up off the ground or at least drop everything and laugh again. like many people, the last few years felt sprinkled with big losses and weights that sent my world spiraling in a way i didn’t really understand until now. in 2024, nothing especially terrible or particularly amazing happened. it was a big relief. i can’t find any record of my 2024 resolutions which feels a bit out of character but maybe i was just too busy being in the desert with my friends.
in 2024, i turned 30 alongside my best friend - i had two cakes! i joined a book club that made me fall in love with reading again. first by responsibility only and eventually truly deeply back in! i went to iceland, i went to california, i went to oregon, i went to maine, i went to new york. i watched 98 movies and didn’t keep track of how many books i read. i watched my friends raise the sweetest baby, i missed many people i love, i took some more classes, rode my bike a little and listened to over 17,000 minutes of podcasts (lol).
this year, i think i might really need to start drinking more water (which i have been doing thanks to a ceramic stanley made by carmen that lucas got me for christmas), moving my body, and riding my bike a little more. i still want to take a sign language class and maybe i will finally read the hobbit and watch the sopranos (additional deserted resolutions from previous years). i am working through details on a year of no-clothes-buying (real ones know this is my true and absolute kryptonite) as i have wrestled with a love of slow fashion vs. culty brands, TikTok trends and overconsumption. it’s not my fault i am amazing at finding good deals and feeling inclined to take advantage of them alas, i am taking 2025 as a year to fall in love with what i already have, notice gaps, save some money and see how it all feels! although i have many complicated thoughts, my journey (capital D, drama) with slow fashion and designer brands has made me grow my relationship to my body in many sweet ways! it is wild what properly fitting and feeling clothes will do to your brain! it has also drained my bank account and made me spend an ungodly amount of time and money at the post office. in the new year, i hope to be there a bit less, though shout out to the providence post office workers i have come to know, love and small talk with. i feel strangely reluctant to make / post resolutions for 2025 though my mom recently sent me a list of 91 resolutions she made in 1991 with her best friend that i am inspired by. (favorites include: don’t be afraid of silence, chill out in certain situations (love, literally so true!), relax - nothings that important and cry less) time will tell.
instead, for now, here are some cheeky ins / outs of 2024/25 :)
IN
wellness - year of massages, skincare, vitamins and 1mg weed gummies
unsubscribing from brand email lists
impulsive vacations
the done not perfect mentality (borrowed from an artist talk by Annika Hansteen-Izora at RISD last semester)
OUT
self care (i:e buying yourself whatever you want and calling it self care)
subscribing to newsletters and actually reading them and not just moving them into a different folder in your email and telling yourself you will eventually read them
phonezoning (just learned that brain rot was the 2024 oxford word of the year)
impulsive purchases (of the clothes variety)
generally saying “no, sorry!”
stunning cake from a rural coastal maine hannafords
6 things
though not represented in my spotify wrapped, this was my favorite song of 2024:
i watched 98 movies in 2024! crazy! gill and i went to the new york film festival for the second time in a row and saw lots of amazing new things. here are a few of my favs from the entire year:
dìdi (弟弟): saw this twice, once during the sundance online streaming and another at coolidge with a q+a with the director, sean wang. sean and i (and many of my friends) are the same age and grew up in an almost identical period of the internet, counterculture and music that made this movie especially special to me.
seeking mavis beacon: another sundance online pick, streaming now on hulu!
no other land: a new york film festival screening. heartbreaking and powerful.
after life: saw at the brattle with gill! followed by a q&a with the director, Hirokazu Kore-eda. everything i love in a movie.
fav watches of 2024
mary recently introduced me to the app fable. my dream has been for someone to make a book version of letterboxd because i do love surfing around on that little app! fable seems like it could maybe be exactly that and i am excited to use it. you can even import data from your goodreads if you want and log tv shows(?). looking forward to continuing the tradition of not reaching my goodreads goal with a new app with more aesthetically pleasing data visualization!
kind of cheating by here but this is an update for the die hards on the the Mohair Melange Headscarf that i bought on etsy from a shop in Latvia. it did not, as previously stated, arrive in november, but instead one month later in december when i began to truly deep down lose hope that it ever would. anyways, it was worth the wait and is true perfection. i get so many compliments on it and it keeps me very warm!
flagging this restock of this beautiful book, sahten - The SkatePal Cookbook, published by the nonprofit, skatepal. gill bought this book for our friends as a christmas gift and it is so beautiful. 100% of proceeds help to support young people in Palestine through skateboarding.
buy here! this post from SFPL Book Arts & Special Collections’s instagram of a catalog card designed by margaret kilgallen when she worked at the san francisco public library in their preservation department. i got to visit the signs she made in their collection when gill and i visited a couple years ago and it was truly so special. the library is working on an exhibit of her work (Margaret Kilgallen: Off the Wall gathers for the first time all ten signs, on view at the Main Library, Sixth Floor, January 10 - March 9, 2025) and i am jealous of everyone who gets to go visit it.
via the SFPL Book Arts & Special Collections’s instagram 
a margaret kilgallen hand painted sign at the @sfpubliclibrary preservation department where she worked in the 90’s 
via Millennium, season 7, episode 4 of x-files maybe not a resolution, but i hope to get less precious about how i use this platform in the new year! 💭
xoxo,
ali
