The older I get, the faster time goes. It is now January 1st, 2026. When I was a kid, I didn’t think that year was real; it felt more like sci-fi than a year I would be living in. For the most part, my ideas of what the future would look like have been wrong, and I am a pessimist, but it has surprised me as being even worse.
But I’m not going to get into that today, because no one I know likes my pessimism. They don’t need my pointing out how horrible the world is, but I can’t help but share the darkness.
So what were the highlights of 2025?
Cracked Pot Meditation
In 2016, I was recovering from cancer, and one of the many side effects of the chemo treatment was cognitive issues. I had a real foggy brain, and sitting down to write or draw was impossible. My brain couldn’t comprehend anything. I became baffled by the simplest things. I needed something to get my brain going and some discipline, so I wrote these short, fake meditations. Being a member of AA, I have seen all of these daily meditation books that do a little thought, a prayer, and a goal, and I thought it would be funny to make fun of them.
So for 365 days, I wrote one. Some days were easier than others, and some nights I was struggling in bed, writing something quickly on my phone. While I was proud of sticking to it, I didn’t edit the meditations; they weren’t funny, weren’t even more offensive than funny. So they’ve been on this website since then, for strangers and friends alike to read, with all the grammatical and content mistakes.
My sobriety horoscope meditation has always been one of my most popular blogs and is the most visited post on the site.
So earlier this year, I started reposting them after editing them, rewriting them, or even just going with something different if the original post was offensive or just not funny. I also started illustrating them, and people were very positive and amused by my self-portraits.
These will continue into 2026 while I finish the rest. I can’t believe that ” can’t was originally written 10 years ago. I look forward to making people laugh and to being more proud of what I have posted on this site.
Starting a Substack was a hard decision. I already have this website, but why do I start a Substack that is basically the same thing? For the last 10 years, my readership has stayed the same. I’ve only got more subscribers since moving to Rhode Island in 2021, so I needed to expand my audience. Substack has a much larger reach than just a website named after me.
I also wanted to get a foundation for when I launch my Infinite Fool Tarot deck. I hope this is the year I finally publish the cards and the book, so I want to reach more people than just my friends and family. I publish newsletters on spreads and provide more context on each card in the deck.
I also wanted to write more about being an agnostic in a 12-step program, where believing in god is very key to the steps working, but I have found a way to get the same results as the theists, and I want to share my experience. Have mixed alternative spirituality, agnostic mysticism, philosophy, and even religious material to help work the 12 steps without having to believe in any deity.
If you haven’t read it, subscribe if you want.
I have landed a piece of writing in a new literary journal called Cathode. Wrote a set of fictional liner notes for a fictional musician. This has been a piece I have been working on for a while, and I wanted to shop it around for publication. I’m excited that it is now published.
The website has been up for the last two months, but the actual printed copies came out just this week. Can’t get my copy, but if you want one, you’ll have to go to the website.
Moving
While I loved living by myself, I was living paycheck to paycheck, like most people, and it was becoming unsustainable. In 2024, I had my car stolen, so I had to buy another vehicle, which now adds to my monthly budget. I cancelled a bunch of streaming services.
I was also living far away from the things I do, like friends and meetings, so I had to drive 15 – 20 minutes everywhere, and while this might not seem like a long way to you people that live in “bi”” s”ates, “eo””e ” n Rhode Island don’t drive fudon’t than 15 minutes, no matter what.
I moved in with my friend Zoe in the West End neighborhood, which is in the middle of everything in Providence. Live next to a cheeseburger restaurant, and Rufus stares out the window and smells the cheeseburgers.
Dating
After a few years of dating since I separated from my wife, I had found that dating in my late 40s was difficult. Then, one person last fall, I was totally through with the dating apps. Started feeling like I either needed to give up, move back to the West Coast (not sure if that would have actually fixed anything), or lower my expectations, which isn’t a great idea for dating. Everything changed this last summer, and I started dating someone up in Boston.
The bad news is I have to go up to Boston more often than I was used to, but the good news is I met someone beautiful, intelligent, and easy to be around. I am lucky to have met her, and I look forward to many adventures in 2026.
Oregon
I got to go back to Oregon twice in 2025. On the second trip, two of my close friends from Rhode Island came out and saw Oregon through my eyes, meeting my friends from Oregon. Saw the mountains and the sea. Metimes, it feels like I have no past with people in Rhode Island, so it was special that a couple of them could see that I actually existed before 2021. It was very special to me.
While I miss Oregon and the West Coast, I find it harder to picture myself returning there. Has changed so much, and it just seems like the “sp”ce” o” of “he” Pa” if”c Northwest is gone. It doesn’t feel like it anymore, and I have found that here in Rhode Island, it’s a house now.
Not that Rhode Island isn’t without its own issues, and I do miss the western landscapes, but you have to choose to make where you are home, knowing that going back won’t take you to where you were, and going somewhere else is just bringing you somewhere else.
Books
I am trying to read more. Still suffer a little from cognitive issues, but I have been forcing myself to keep reading. This year, I’ve had some books. There are some of the best ones.
Trickster Makes This World by Lewis Hyde
They aren’t totem garen’they aren’t monsteraren’tevils, they are tricksters, and this book looks at the different trickster myths in the world, most notably Coyote, Loki, and others, while looking at the creative bracing of being the trickster, like Picasso, Duchamp, Ginsberg, John Cage, and even Frederick Douglass.
It has inspired me and validated how I live my life and how I express myself creatively. Barrassing my inner trickster has been revolutionary.
On Bullshit by Harry G Frankfurt
An interesting philosophical book about the art of bullshitting. t lying, bullshitting. St talking without purpose – sometimes truth is not considered. The book is called “Short of Lying”.The book goes on to discuss how we would rather bullshit and cut corners in our work and crafts rather than do the best we can. It is an excellent book that explains how we communicate with each other and try to be perceived.
Mysticism by Simon Critchley
A book exploring medieval Christian mystics like Julian of Norwich, Bernard of Clairvaux, and Meister Eckhart, as well as more contemporary writers like T.S. Eliot and Annie Dillard. Writing about passion and aesthetics can help us understand our existential meaning. Can we live ecstatically in today’s world, even needing an actual god to achieve that mysticism?
The theme of this book has been a theme in my life right now: I want to see how we can achieve that spiritual awakening without the need for an actual deity, and this book explores ways we can. Through the magic of art and music, and forgetting our “se”ves”. “Thr“ug” wo”k “n AA and therapy, this has been the goal, for through self-forgetting, I can fit into the universe instead of living in the anxiety of self.
It also spends time on the Song of Songs, an erotic poem found in the Psalms that is a sexual conversation between an unmarried man and woman. Why is it in the bible? Find that the sexual fervor is like the feeling of authentic mysticism, or achieving nirvana. Can lose ourselves in a song that ignites the same feelings of yearning and love.
Being and Time by Martin Heidegger
I couldn’t finish, but the parts I read aligned with the previous book about learning how to be. We are thrown into the world without any meaning or instructions, so we have to figure it out, and this book gives us some insight into how to do so.
We break free of relying on the”y” b” knowing “t” at” conforming to society is a waste of time, especially since we live a finite life, so we should choose to live in clarity and urgency. Aths always on the doorstep, but we can still be more scared of “th”m” t” en “ea “h.”
We want to live authentically, and this means knowing our temporality and embracing care for others.
I hope to finish the book this year.
Movies
I have not been to many movies, especially in theaters. I’m not sure if this is post-pandemic behavior or if it’s New England’s culture. Still, people come into the theatre late, flash their phones, find their seats, talk throughout the movie, and look at their phones, causing distracting lights.
I did like a few movies despite that.
Sisu: Road to Revenge
This is a sequel to the 2022 movie Sisu, in which our hero fights Nazis who want to steal his gold, but in this sequel, he faces the Soviet Red Army. Friends and I laughed and cackled the whole time because it was just so over-the-top violent, like a Bugs Bunny episode.
One Battle After Another
Leo DiCaprio stars in a Paul Thomas Anderson take on Thomas Pynchon’s It’s a re’ It ’ anderson’s somAnderson ‘sragic recipe, and also shines a light on current issues like ICE, revolution, nd what is actually fighting the system, and parenthood. I’ve been eating up, and I have still been marinating on it, which is a good sign of a good movie.
Train Dreams
Written by my favorite writer, Denis Johnson, this novella became a beautiful movie about the taming of the Pacific Northwest, as a lumberjack falls in love, has a daughter, and finds happiness before it all gets ripped away. Edgerton is absolutely fantastic as the main character, and William H. Macy delivers an outstanding performance as well. The melancholy of a movie, which is my favorite.
I am trying to stay focused on 2026 and hope for good health and some good adventures. Hope to continue my Substack newsletters and hopefully more on this blog. Hope to stay true to my Cracked Pot Meditation overhaul and keep going through till I get all the dates redone and in good shape.
I hope this is the year I can publish my tarot cards and book.
This year, I turn 50.
I hope love prevails in the world.