It’s January 2nd, 2026 where I’m writing this, and I would’ve written and published it earlier, but I chose to spend the last few weeks of the year celebrating with friends, because this year was often dreadful professionally and depressing politically, but I had a lot of creative successes that are worth reminding myself of here.
DOGE is Four Letters
Trump took office in January 2025, and wasted no time in letting Elon Musk wreak havoc throughout the federal government. There’s plenty of great reporting (that’s still worth revisiting), so I won’t belabor the introduction — if you’re reading this, the chances are good that you don’t need one. However, this gave me an opportunity to take a different angle on a series I started in 2024, and I feel pretty good about the work I did with DOGE is Four Letters — 24 interviews with federal workers about what they do (or did), how they were impacted by DOGE, what they thought might happen in the future, and what they were going to do next.
The level of effort for producing these wasn’t small, and so I eventually had to give it up, but I’m proud of the work I did here and thank everyone who gave up their time to tell me their stories.
Tragic Lovers
My band, Tragic Lovers, had a busy year; we ended up playing 10 shows this year, which averages out to around one every 5 weeks or so. If you’ve never played in a band, this is a lot of shows for a band of middle-aged people with jobs, lives, bills, pets, and, at least in one of our cases, children (though it’s not much compared to a touring schedule).
We’re hoping to do some writing this year, but these shows were frequently rewarding and we never embarrassed ourselves, and at our age(s), that’s certainly not nothing.
Normal Men
I was asked to participate in something I said I’d never do this year — a podcast. Normal Men features four men (sometimes more, sometimes not-men) talking about a wide variety of topics: sports, the news, politics, but also life, our friends and families, and more. Normal in this context may often be aspirational, but I’ve had a blast working with George, Propter, Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer and Ed, who took my place when the workload to keep up on it became too much for me to handle and who was, I think, a decided improvement to the show, in more ways than one.
If you haven’t heard it, give it a listen here, or on your favorite podcast app — we had a fun time wrapping up the end of the year with listener mail.
The Year to Come
I don’t have a lot of grand plans for the year to come — I’ve never been much of a New Year’s Resolution person, and while journeys of self-discovery and self-improvement are well and good, I have long taken the scenic route for both and don’t intend to divert from it this year. I refuse to give into the pressures of Big Lift or the Middle-Aged Marathoner Industrial Complex, though I’ve got small goals related to paying a little more attention to my appearance and indulging my vices a little less often — more trousers instead of denim, less meat, fewer happy hours and more sleep. I’m neither optimistic nor pessimistic about the year to come; it’ll have many challenges, plenty of bad news, tender moments and accomplishments worth celebrating, just like every other year.
I do plan to get back to WORK is Four Letters this year, but at a less frenetic pace than I was initially publishing, because the workload for producing these is pretty substantial. Each interview takes around two hours, transcribing and completing an initial edit of the transcription takes two to four hours, and then cutting down the final edit and formatting takes another two hours or so. I learned a lot about what kinds of interviews I want to conduct and how I want to publish them while working on DOGE is Four Letters, and hope that what I learned can cut down on some of the effort when I restart WIFL this year. I’ve got some other ideas for interviews as well — I’d like to talk to people about what they do outside of work; volunteering, artistic projects, hanging out in real life, etc., but I need to think more about how to structure this, and, honestly, give some thought to whether it’s something anyone even wants to read.
I spent the waning hours of 2025 on the Oregon coast, watching the final sunset of the year with my beloved and my friends. I don’t think there’s any real conclusion for me to draw from that, other than that I should spend more time with my friends and more time visiting the coast. Everything else I want out of the year needs me to put in the work.
Manzanita, Oregon Coast, Dec. 31st, 2026
GOLIKEHELLMACHINE 
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