polaroid print out of blurry, smiling face


so I didn't have any plans to do one of those relefecting on the year that was kind of posts, and I still don't. But a couple of things happened recently that are vaguely New Years related, and so I thought it might be nice to write about them. Let's see if it is.


one hand in my pocket

on new years eve aka 31st of December I got an email from Alison saying that my short story, One Hand in My Pocket had been posted to the Long Trek Press website. Long Trek Press is a new science fiction + fatansy journal run by Alison and their fellow writer Rafeif Ismail, and was created to publish works by writers from Aotearoa and so-called 'Australia.' As they mention on their 'About' page, places for works that fall into the SFF genres are few and far between in our parts of the world. So I was really excited to find out that a story I was really proud of but was having trouble placing for exactly that reason had been accepted there. One Hand in My Pocket is a story about robots, friendship and grief. It's about what people need to keep going and what it means to have had enough. It's a got a couple of silly jokes, because in the same way that writing silly jokes is what keeps me going through the hardest parts of writing, it's the silly jokes that keep me going through the hardest parts of life. God that sounds so trite but it's true. I nearly took out one of these jokes because I thought it would be too much, but when a friend messaged me to tell me how much they liked the story, they mentioned that joke specifically, so I'm glad I trusted my gut on that one.

Anyway, here's a link to the story if you missed it earlier; https://longtrek.xyz/2024/12/31/one-hand-in-my-pocket/

Also if you haven't already guessed from the title, music is a big part of this story, so much so that I decided to make a mix for it. I floated the idea of posting it alongside the story with Alison, and they were on board, bless them! Tbh the whole experience of publishing with them was so great, it has really reminded me of value of working with people that I trust and respect, and with pubs that align with the work I'm trying to do. And that with every story/game/thing that I publish, I want to make it another step towards the kind of artist I want to be.






happy 2020

while cleaning the house on New Years Eve eve, I decided to put on a Newport Dolls EP, Dollwave, specifically because of a song they have on there called Happy 2020.



I listened to this song heaps last year, and there are lots of lines from it that will just pop into my head from time to time ("in these uncertain times, would you like a biscuit?"). But on this day, I had this line on a loop; "It's New Years Eve eve aka 30th December 2019". Not being one to pass up an auspicious conincidence, I fished the CD out from the back of the Dollwave zine I knew I had tucked away somewhere, and put it on while I vaccumed the rug. When "Happy 2020" came on, I lay down on said rug, now dust and cat hair free (ish), and listened. It turns out the whole line is this; "It's New Years Eve Eve aka 30th December 2019 and I've lost all sense of time in that period between Christmas and New Years but apparently it's a Monday." And I was like holy shit, because not only was it 30th December, it was also a Monday. I had to tell someone other than the cats, who were hiding from the vacuum anyway, so I messaged my friend Liv Thomas, who is in the band, saying that I was listening to the Happy 2020 on New Year's Eve Eve aka 30th December and apparently it's a Monday and I am thinking of them. I hit back on the CD player and listened to the song again, trying to soak up as much of the moment as possible, and then I went back to cleaning and that was that.

Another line I really like from this song is "It's Monday morning again and I'm writing this from my Squishy Office aka I haven't got out of bed yet", particularly because I am currently writing this from my own squishy office, laid up with cramps because I got my period yesterday (happy new year to me!).

Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, Liv is also the friend who will send me the nice message on New Years Day about my story; maybe that's why these two moments feel linked, and it's not about New Years at all? I think I like that better, to have two moments be connected by a friend rather than a random holiday that lots of people often dread. So I guess I am glad I wrote about them, hey. I don't think I would've figured that out otherwise.


reading

watching

listening

playing

i got a steamdeck for my birthday and so my game playing is way up and everything else is way down lol