This piece was developed with companion music in mind for each section, intended to enhance the experience. Of course it would donk up and not embed the last song but the important thing is that I tried.

Shut Up

Here it is, the only deadline that can get me to write and finish something! Those same big things keep begging to be written, and as I write I begin to understand more of the interconnectedness of all things, which compels a rewrite, a reframe, a put-it-to-the-side-for-things-I-can-finish. I couldn’t fully catch any of them this year, but I can feel my fingers on one. My grip strength improves. Even if it’s an arbitrary deadline, I’m glad there’s some mechanism pushing me to acknowledge the year, in a space that’s mine. And it doesn’t matter if it’s good or even all that done (it’s not), no one cares about this as much as I do.

Horse Grrls

Horse life continues apace. I’m still working at the farm and I still enjoy it. There are days and there are days, right? Some days a horse will rest their little chin on my shoulder and sigh contentedly as I clean their water bucket, or use their head to sweep me into a hug. Some days are just awful because (the weather sucks/equipment is broken/ short-staffed/threats from horses/ faves leave or die). Usually when something bad happens around a horse, it’s not because the horse intended for it to happen–they clearly view me as a resource and it’s really only horses who are new to the barn or the young ones with excess energy (new to the barn AND new to work life) who give me guff anymore. 

I have reservations about the idea of “honest work” and the way it assigns a positive moral value to the idea of breaking down your body for significantly less money than the wages of those who sell their mental labor. That said, my work at the farm feels purposeful in a way much of the work for pay I’ve experienced in my lifetime has not. In terms of honesty: nothing I do at the farm takes advantage of anyone or brings harm to anyone, while many of the other jobs I’ve worked have used me directly or indirectly to take advantage of people and/or harm them. And it does feel better to be able to cling to a strand of moral superiority than just be underpaid and exhausted in a world of ever-increasing expenses. It’s work with more good days than bad, which feels like a lot. 

My continuing employment with the farm means my fitness continues to improve. Every hay bale I pick up and toss is one step closer to my dream fitness level: being able to, if need be, pick up an adult person and throw them through a plate glass window. Just in case. 

Navi is doing well and our partnership continues to improve.  She always comes to me nickering, even when she’s hanging out with her friends. When I’ve had the opportunity to turn her loose in the arena this year, we’ve had the most fun doing ball chase work–we’ve evolved from “chase it, then touch it” and “move the ball from a standstill” to “catch the ball while it’s moving and move it more”. I tried to add “move the ball to a specific place” context but we’re not there yet. It feels like baby steps toward a form of no-direct-human-control horse sport, and wouldn’t that be something? No spurs, whips or chains, but eager and willing participants.

We had a scare this year when she colicked pretty badly, which required tending throughout the night, walking her to keep her on her feet and encourage her digestive system to move. I’d never seen her like that before, bellowing from pain. I’m so glad she’s boarded on our vet’s property! I’m so glad I have a heated jacket! I’m so glad Goblin Melissa bought gummy candy at the grocery store and left it in the car because she didn’t want to share, along with the camp chair she was too lazy to bring back inside! At 4am, those sweet little watermelonny nuggets and a place to sit in Navi’s shed while I pulled my arms into the body of the coat and hugged myself for additional warmth felt like the difference between my own life and death.

I’ve become a better rider over the past year, in large part owing to selling my saddle and riding with bareback pads instead. (Special ones designed to protect her spine.) The lack of stirrups makes both getting on and riding more challenging, which forced me develop better core strength and balance so as to not fall off. And I haven’t fallen off at all this year, even when we went over a little unintentional jump. I’ve been developing the musculature to start to post the trot correctly, the rise in my upper body starting from the quadriceps rather than the foot pushing against the stirrup. Over the course of the year I’ve witnessed positive changes in the musculature of Navi’s back and can feel that she is more relaxed and comfortable in work, all of which affirm my decision to ride with different equipment. I’ve been in the process of trying to replace the saddle, but as we both have some outside-the-standard measurements, a saddle that fits us both on the used market is a rarer find. 

Navi’s nicknames this year: Heffalump, Heffa, Snorts McGorts/Snurts McGurts, Old Yeller

Perfect Body Machine

I went full circle on a sport this year, from starting to attend water fitness classes to starting to have opinions about the quality of various water fitness classes to teaching class myself to rapidly burning out and now too embarrassed to attend class!

A longtime friend who is also a water fitness instructor suggested I give teaching a try because he thought I’d be good at it. And I was good at it! I received so much positive feedback and it gladdened my heart when people told me their health had measurably improved, that they could feel the work they’d done in their muscles the next day, that they had fun and left my class feeling good in their body. I enjoyed putting together playlists and figuring out coordinating fitness moves.

But being good at something doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the right fit. There were a number of contributing factors to me stepping back to substitute teaching only but the biggest two were: doing high impact cardio on a wet tile floor three times per week was wrecking my body in a way that left me unable to enjoy time with Navi, and I quickly grew resentful of the time demands of workout routine development, as, with no routines provided to instructors, it’s labor I’m expected to perform that goes entirely uncompensated–and it’s not like I could use those routines to make money elsewhere as there’s a non-compete clause in the employment agreement. It’s just hours of work for a routine that eventually feels stale to the students so it has to be filed away and hours of work invested into the next one. If I’d have kept at it, eventually I would have had a library of routines and it wouldn’t have been so demanding on my body and my time, but I felt within myself a deep unwillingness to invest so much of my time and energy into a place that has already devalued my labor, and I chose to honor that. Especially after I saw at the all-hands meeting how someone’s ten year employment status was honored–a paper certificate and tee shirts for every employee that disclosed her cancer diagnosis. I don’t know how much it costs to print more than a hundred tee shirts, but I hear cancer treatments are expensive even with insurance and you can’t buy shit with a piece of paper that says “good job!”

Something I learned about myself in this process: evidently the vast majority of my favorite songs have an element of raunchiness or something else that makes them unsuitable for classes filled with easily-offended older adults. So really, I should be teaching land-based nighttime twerk-fitness to cool middle aged people like myself. 

A Selection of Excised Songs:

Perfect Body Machine — an extremely fun synth-retro body-referential song that was perfect for my Neon Waves playlist (Freudian typo: playlust) except it’s about a sex robot, so no. I don’t know how it took me so long to hear it? I blame my eardrums and the song’s pronunciation of Don Juan. 

Start a Riot — one instance of “booty bitches” in a song that otherwise lends itself to really fun choreo opportunities 

Put Me To Work — a song that could conceivably be interpreted as working at exercise, except it’s about the unleashing of AI and how it “doesn’t care when they get hurt”, so not raunchy but still problematic

Bodyhammer — I suspected I couldn’t get away with “inject me/inject my body with it” 

Daddy Cool — I didn’t want to encourage pool perverts and I really don’t want to elaborate about that now.

Water Fitness Hits:

Turbulence (ft. Steve Aoki) – Are you kidding me?! We made that water CHURN. I’m surprised there was anything left in the pool for the lap swimmers afterward.

Party Train – This one got people moving, grooving, and not even one complaint. 

Another thing I learned this year while casually putting together potential playlists: In addition to their banger on the 1995 Mortal Kombat movie soundtrack, The Immortals also released an entire Mortal Kombat album with songs for individual fighters and it’s the album equivalent of “so terrible it’s funny except really it’s mostly terrible”, including a dance-y torch song for Kano. “You’re the Bad Guy, but I feel for you. You’re the danger, a fallen angel. But I like you, you’re the strongest of them all.” You could listen to it. You could, I’m in no way saying that’s a good idea. But you could.

Burning Love

I saw a few, small, excellent shows this year.

That 1 Guy

I finally got to see That 1 Guy again, after literal years of missing him because of schedule conflicts. He always puts on such a fun show and afterward we got to catch up a little. He told me that he missed me, that he really missed me, and it touched me so deeply to be remembered enough to be missed. As a fan, I expect I’m a face in a crowd, a blurry impression. How could it be anything otherwise, with night after night of crowds of faces? To look at a fave and have a fave look back, see me, remember me? It feels like a rare connection. It’s knowing that my presence is giving back in a small way to an artist whose work has had a presence in my life. 

Priest

I fed the algorithm a pandemic of heavy listening to my comfort faves and the algorithm replied “You should check out Priest.” And lo, it was very good. A band of professed Swedish sex robots who make dark, synthy, danceable music with just the right amount of raunch and enough complexity for my brain to chew on. Every element of the kitschy theatrics of their stage personas appeals to my aesthetic. (Real ones remember when I was blogging as teh_dirty_robot.) 

They came to town this year, at The Funhouse, right around the peak of “this-is-my-current-special-interest” where every song from the full catalog is still giving maximum dopamine. I had to work a farm shift beforehand, which, nbd, is just walking 10-13km and lifting and carrying a literal ton of water, but that didn’t stop me from weaseling up to the front row and dancing my entire ass off. It was one of the best shows I’ve been to, ever. Looking up at my fave and my fave looking back, with his red laser eye. And then really being seen in the meet & greet line where my exhaustion eroded my word-vomit inhibitors and I said every stupid thing I’ve ever thought to the point I’m pretty sure I saw the laser eye glaze over and I still wasn’t able to stop?? Let me go back to being a blurry impression, please.

Solstice Fest

I worked on the Solstice Fest show at the farm this summer and it wasn’t supposed to be a small show but for some odd reason no one wanted to turn up to an outdoor show during a freak cold snap thunderstorm? It was hard to put in so many hours of work for such low turnout and I’m sure it had to be disappointing for the bands and vendors as well. On the other hand, I got to see a really cool show and all it cost me was my sanity for a while. And once again, I was glad to have that heated jacket!

Misfit Cabaret

I got to meet an e-friend for the first time this year when the cabaret he performs with played some dates at The Triple Door. The show was a delight! The streets between the theater and my car made me sad about how many people have fallen through the cracks, sad that this is the first time in twenty years of living in the area that I’ve ever felt unsafe on Seattle streets at night. I’m sure some portion of that feeling can be attributed to my transition to a suburban-semi-country-reclusive-daywalker; lack of exposure to the breadth of the nighttime human experience has resensitized me. Still: I’d never seen multiple men with their pants down on the sidewalk on the same block before. 

Text Me Back

I ALSO went to the Text Me Back pre-election special live recording with a bestie back when we still had hope and didn’t yet know that we live in The Bad Place. I love this podcast and the hosts’ best friendship and I especially love a Lord of the Rings themed extended fellowship edition version of F/M/K.  (F: Haldir, M: Éomer, K: Pippin)

Everything Is Simple

I saw one large, disappointing show this year. Jason’s family came to visit the last weekend of the summer, and one of the activities I suggested was the Evergreen State Fair because a fair has something for everyone (unless what you really like is saving money in a quiet atmosphere, in which case you should probably stay home while everyone else goes to the fair). I also suggested going to the rodeo at the fair because as an adult, I understand the importance of including seated activities. Plus I’d get to look at some horses.

I hadn’t been to a rodeo since I was a child, when again, I was mostly excited to look at some horses. But with adult eyes, semi-educated in equine physiognomy, I was anxious that I wouldn’t love seeing those horses. I also had trepidation about the presence of all the other kind of stuff that tends to stroll hand-in-hand with cowboy enthusiasm. I figured there was probably going to be some kind of MAGA element because that sentiment is more common in people who work with livestock–those are the people driving the trucks covered in threatening stickers and flying two plus flags from the rear (carrying extra stickers to plaster on gas pumps to blame Joe Biden for the price of gas, as though the president directly sets gas prices and the drag from flying two enormous flags doesn’t impact mileage whatsoever?). There were, in fact, multiple booths throughout the fair dedicated to Trump worship, and I should’ve listened to that niggling worry about attending because the rodeo is basically a lifted truck covered in bumper stickers waving two American flags turned into a show.

Shortly before the show, the announcer came on over the loudspeakers to say something along the lines of “tonight we’ll be celebrating America and praying to God and if either of those things offends you, you should leave.” You know, after they already have your money. Which sounds a lot to me like they want the same kind of safe space about which they mock others. That sentiment sat sour with me at the time and after thinking on it more, still bothers me. It sat worse with me after the flag ceremonies and prayer, which hammered on our “GOD GIVEN RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS” and the ULTIMATE BLOOD SACRIFICE PAID BY JEEE-ZUS and calling down the angels to protect the performers and the livestock, so if nothing bad happens, God and the angels get the credit. Does the fact that they were planning on passing the boot the following night for the “injured rodeo performers’ fund” mean that the angels were too busy to help sometimes?

Here’s the thing: I don’t begrudge the Christians a rodeo, if it’s advertised as such. I do begrudge the hypocrisy inherent in the Christian demand that everyone present tolerate Christian religious ceremonies at events for the general public, i.e. “we get to have our thing wherever we want whether you like it or not”, while simultaneously Christians say with their words and actions “you don’t get to have your thing anywhere without it being overshadowed by the threat of gun violence” and “your rights and freedoms don’t matter when it conflicts with our religious belief.” Loving their neighbor by insisting that they withdraw from society, or, ideally, just die. But if they’re right, they get an entire afterlife to be exclusively with other Christians, living under God’s laws. It’s greedy to want that in life, too. And I’m sick to death of “well those aren’t real Christians” because that stance tries to shirk accountability with “not one of us, not our problem” instead of acknowledging and working to fix the problem. If there’s a cancer in your body, you don’t just say “that’s not REAL healthy tissue” and move on with your life, you cut it out. 

My experienced eyes did make some of the horse stuff uncomfortable. There were some who definitely knew and enjoyed their job, but I also saw nervous behavior, pained faces, lameness. I did get to meet a short little fat horse named Danny Devito.

And they lured me into their blindfolded dance contest under false pretenses; later a coworker said she saw me and thought that I “almost had it until that guy started getting naked.”

Our World

Jason and I volunteered at Arlington Skyfest this year and won the volunteer prize: a pair of airline tickets to anywhere Alaska flies. We’re not certain where that’ll be but it’ll be within the next six months or not at all. It’s time to get deciding! And, I suppose, hope that American tourists aren’t banned from wherever we pick once America bans vaccines, because we live in the dumbest possible timeline.

I got to spend part of a week at Lake Chelan this summer with one of my besties and her partner, and we spent the whole time either on or in the water, boating, stand up paddleboarding, swimming, and hot tubbing. The lake water is cold and to be honest, it’s kind of frightening to be off the side of the boat way out from the shore. Even though my brain knows there’s nothing in there that could bite off a leg, in the middle of the lake it feels entirely possible that something enormous will slither by in search of a snack.

My dad came to visit for a long weekend at the end of September, and we spent it eating delicious food, laughing, walking, and visiting some of the trolls Danish artist Thomas Dambo installed in the Pacific Northwest: the ones in Issaquah, West Seattle, and Vashon Island (where I’d never been before, owing to the ferry required and not really having a reason.)

Jason and I traveled to SoCal for a long weekend in November to celebrate my nephew’s first birthday. I also got to meet a new baby cousin, we toured “the most haunted house in America”, and I ate all the things, including a pastrami pizza and a fish taco so delicious it almost made me cry. 

Memorable books I read in 2024: 

The Eighty Dollar Champion: Snowman, the Horse That Inspired a Nation:
The true story of an underdog plow horse rescued from a kill pen, who loved his job and in his enthusiasm, did it better than all the expensive horses bred for the task. The true story of a man who lived through incredible loss and hardship and stayed kind. 

Wind and Truth:
The fifth book and the conclusion of the first arc of The Stormlight Archive. How am I going to make it until the next book’s release in 2031? When is someone going to finish reading who is willing to shit talk and theorize with me??

Notable Games I played in 2024:

Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood, a choose-your-own-adventure style game in which you play as an exiled witch and design your own divination deck. I played through a few times and enjoyed it but occasionally hoped for a greater breadth of options.

The Simpsons: Tapped Out, a mobile game that’s been out for twelve years and is shutting down at the end of January. In light of that, they unlocked almost all of the previously released content and gave players the full sandbox. I’d stopped playing some years ago but upon this news, reinstalled it and have really enjoyed perfecting my Springfield in ways that never would’ve happened when premium items cost money. 

And while it turns out I’m not out of stuff to say, I’m out of 2024. Here’s to supporting our communities in 2025–that we need one another is true all the time and it’ll be truer than ever going forward.