She’s Back

Normally this time of year I would post about the things I wanted to accomplish in the following months. For some reason, I have a deep aversion to calling them goals. The word feels extra loaded and steeped in pressure from failures of the past compounded annually. And while I have laid out my plans for the next 12 months (and beyond) I wanted to begin the year by putting them in motion rather than talking about them.

When I sat down to write my first post of the year, which was also the first post in several months since I took an unplanned hiatus, I felt that immediate surge of overwhelm pressuring me. What should I write about? Let’s consult my ever growing list. Which backlog of travel logs do I pick from? I have unposted things nearing a decade old. Blah blah blah.

The perfect way to get me to stop making progress is by throwing endless choices in my face and making the process as difficult and convoluted as possible. My desire for perfection will do the rest.

Well, not this time! Instead I stumbled upon a silly impromptu photoshoot from an Arizona trip in 2024. I was playing around with my now ~vintage~ digital camera I got way back in 2006. The photos were raw and fuzzy despite being digital, but something about the high flash spoke to me. The antithesis of perfection. And the impulsivity of it. Feeling the urge to just create something without an end use for it happens so infrequently yet it was the basis of the creation of my blog to begin with.

The way content creation works these days it feels as though there’s little room to goof around. The sheer volume needed to stay relevant doesn’t afford time for exploration through trial and error. Everything must be planned to maximize visibility with SEO, keywords, and trending viral slop. Meandering whimsy does not pay and thus is not prioritized. I understand the logistics but boy does it feel soulless.

One might be wondering what the purpose of this post is, I myself am questioning that as well. Which is a good thing! It means I’m not tossing out random work for its lack of perfection before its had a moment to just be. This post is an icebreaker, a reintroduction. A way to dip my town without having to kill of my creativity by writing something that feels forced.

I’m just happy to still be here after all these years and grateful that readers have stuck around this long. Thank you for indulging me on this one. I needed a manageable win to get the ball rolling on this site again.

I may still publish my goals for the year since people seem to enjoy reading them along with the annual blooper reel. Expect to see my list of Best podcasts of 2025 coming up soon. In the meantime, you can check out my 2024 list if you haven’t already.

Alright, forward into the abyss we go! And if it wasn’t made clear before, I’d like to let it be known that this blog has always been and will continue to be AI FREE. All of this mediocre writing is my own as are the photos. Here’s to posting even when things aren’t exactly how I imagined them.