Oops, all drafts

Time for my annual post!

An emphatic journal entry I wrote in high school often pops up in my mind: “I’m sooo sorry I haven’t written! I can’t believe how long it’s been, I have so much to catch you up on.”

The “you” I was apologizing to was — and you’ll never see this coming — myself. Since the days of hand-scrawled diaries, I’ve come to appreciate the instinct to record and reflect. Even if it’s only me reading it, or in this case, my modest Substack following, archiving is one of the only tools available to combat the etch-a-sketch nature of time. (My memory’s pretty terrible if you couldn’t tell by that analogy.)

Of course, I forget the value of writing most of the time, or just let it get pushed down for fear of not having anything to say. And the way I have this newsletter set up — by not turning on paid subscribers and therefore accountable to no one — it’s easy to get away with, to allow this virtual record to lie dormant and collect dust pixels.

You’ve probably realized by now this is just another “why I didn’t write this newsletter this year” post. I know that premise has worn thin if not entirely disintegrated, so bear with me!

I think I’m saying that, in the spirit of resolutions and what’s “in” for 2025, I want to be a little looser with it. As a reader, I’m drawn to the less serious approach — shorter missives that were seemingly cast off in a hurry. I like being swept up in someone’s of-the-moment observation, take on a trend or relatable struggle. I did attempt some of those this year, and have even written all three of the remaining playlist posts, but got hung up on the vulnerability that comes with posting.

Whatever’s caused this year’s stage fright, it helps to know the stalled, resistant feeling around writing is sort of universal. Some of my writer friends’ writing-about-not-writing posts have become my favorite types of content to consume. And after recently rewatching HBO’s “Girls,” I realized that one of television’s messiest protagonists Hannah Horvath, while depicted as a moderately gifted writer, hardly ever writes. She’s usually fucking off at a warehouse party or losing herself in a relationship.

While I didn’t dance at any warehouse parties this year (actually, does head bobbing at a Boiler Room set in Mexico City count?), here’s some of what I got up to instead of writing this year.

• I got married! While the wedding was a 10/10, I do have one note. It was a lot to plan on our own — lots of moving parts and head-spinning decisions. If I had to impart advice to someone who, like me, identifies as a non-planner, I might suggest going with some kind of package deal. But, then again, the day was pretty perfect, so maybe I wouldn’t change a thing?

• I got to spend some quality time with my family from Israel when they visited in the fall. It’s always hard living across the world from them, but this year has been especially tough.

• I went off my SSRI. All it did was remind me why I went on them in the first place! I literally just started back up today.

• I’m happy I got to be in nature this year. I glamped, camped, hiked and swam. California is so damn vast.

• I edited so much hysterical, thoughtful and just truly stellar work at the Chronicle. I’m also happy to have brought on new freelancers who covered global movements with local roots, explored rarefied artistic movements and shared perceptive takes on film and fashion.

• I didn’t find the time to write at work very often, but I did pen this review of Bad Bunny’s San Francisco concert!

My resolution for 2024 was super broad: to have more fun. That might sound like the aspiration of a 50-year-old rom-com character trying to get her groove back, but after putting my head down the year before to adjust to the new job, I felt the need to live a little. Between seeing some amazing live theater in the city, getting nostalgia-pilled via the Postal Service set at Outside Lands, squishing up against the youths of Mexico City for said Boiler Room set, dancing after Christmas dinner as my mom led us through her Zumba routine to Lil Jon’s “All I really want for Christmas,” I’d say I did that.

This year, my resolution is to send out one newsletter per month. It’s a low bar, and I’m pretty sure I’ve said that before, but I think it’s where I’ve gotta start, or restart. Forced deadlines are a necessary evil. The Chronicle’s outgoing film critic Mick LaSalle said as much during his retirement speech a few weeks ago: He compared newspaper writing to a wind tunnel, where whatever you produce gets swept up and published whether you’re ready — or have something to say — or not.

So, cheers to the wind tunnel that is 2025. Here we go.