New Years

Phone notes and then some

January 2023

(The Hairy Lemon, East Village)

First note of the year: Bruh I picked up like three guys tonight.

Last year, me and the girls had all been here, at this dive. Jenny met Nathan, and I was with John, who is now my ex. We’d met three years prior in Buenos Aires, and through a series of fated events, him in Australia and me in New York, we came together, but it would be the last New Year we had together, and that’s the way the cookie crumbles. I am lighter for it. The cleanest breakup I’ve ever had.

And tonight, I am on one. I flirt with a guy at the bar. He asks for my number. We went to an afterparty at a bar near by. Another guy tells me not to get into my Uber that’s arriving right now and this is not a normal occurrence for me, personally. To get this much attention. I think it’s the red lips. I feel hot tonight. Fresh, possibility. I think there’s a little twinkle for all of us on New Years, anyway. And to be validated for that, is a sweet new treat.

In regards to my life, my dad tells me to monetize my spirit, and this is the kind of moment I want to bottle up.

In my Uber home, I do notice I want the apartment to be clean for Matt, the new guy I’ve been dating, when he comes over.

January 2024

(The Bell House, Brooklyn)

First note of the year: Pew pew pew!!!! January 2024!!! Fireworks go off at 1:15 am

It took me a while to leave the bar. They were playing the same playlist over again (??) and my feet were starting to hurt, and I had a 20 min walk ahead of me. It was probably time, but I still felt bad leaving. I was having fun. I saw the best drag show I’ve ever seen in my life. As I walked and turned down 3rd, a girl says: you slayed the outfit.

And I say: “Thank you!! Happy New Year!!”

And she says: “Happy New Year!”

I watched literally incredible drag performers and I think about the bathroom that’s unisex with urinals and stalls and we’re all just trying to expel the toxins from us and get along with our lives. And I wonder what Republicans are so afraid of.

On my walk home, I pass a guy stacking milk bottles in a storage facility, and we say “Happy New Year!”

I feel it bro. I’m streeeettrcccchinnggggy dude

Famously fucking bopping to music at 1am in Brooklyn, me.

Fuck I feel good. I had a spiritual experience to Natasha Bettingfield tonight. The rest is literally unwritten, my guy.

As is tradition, I will go home and shower the sweat off me, and watch Anastasia.

Happy new year 🫶

January 2025

(Pinapple Club, East Village)

First note of the year: I am exactly on time!!!

The week between Christmas and New Years is my first year I’ve ever had holiday PTO. I had just gotten a new job, and our offices were shut down for the holidays.

On the 30th, I went on a first date - the last first date of the year, which I prayed would be the end of a year of lots of first dates. I got drunk, said a lot, and I remind myself I can’t say the wrong thing to the right person. He’s 39. He has big goals for himself, and asks about my 5-year plan, and I like that he knows what he wants.

I’d spent the whole day earlier at Bathhouse, meditating, baking, steaming, cold plunging, repeat. I went alone and that was okay. I think about how I probably am a little more loosey goosey after two cocktails and a beer, having vented everything out of me earlier.

After the date, he tells me he doesn’t think he’s in a place to date right now. He has a lot of goals he wants to accomplish this year. He asks to follow me so he can keep up with my publishing journey. When I ask him how his New Year’s goals are coming along, he sends me a Google Drive video of him walking on his hands, and I’m glad he’s going after his goals.

And I think about my book, and how I’m heading into edits, and my editor says I have something really cool here.

Bless up.

Pineapple Club was fine. They had passed snacks, and we paid $140 dollars to get free drinks all night, which I think feels reasonable for New York City on New Year’s Eve.

January 2026

(Jenny and Nathan’s, Brooklyn)

First note of the year: Fresh air

The morning of the 30th, everything was upside down. I did everything in a different order. Variety is the spice of life, as they say. 2025 was fine. I finished writing my memoir. Which I understand is a big feat, to finish a book. I finished a first draft of a solo show. I have a two-year road map, and it’s only the 31st.

Yesterday, I was on my highest frequency. I took a ferry to Governor’s Island with a friend to the day spa where we each took an edible. We baked, steamed, meditated, looked out to the city. I felt the waves of change, settle back into myself, allowed my imagination to take me where it wanted to go. I had a giggle in every room. Every room, each meditation, brought me somewhere lighter, freer, more playful. Attractive, settled, calm. I bumped into another friend who had missed the ferry in the maze of the building because I couldn’t find the bathroom.

I went to find a journal from last year to read about what I’d gotten up to - it was the first journal I pulled out, and I flipped open to the exact day a year ago (what, truly, are the odds?). I had gone to a day spa too, a year to the date.

I get pizza in a blush velvet dress with my friend Ally. We split a glass of pet nat. We decide our words for the year: clarity for her and play for me. We walk to our best friend and her husband’s for a party, and the phrasing is so wild and beautiful. At the age where our best friend has a houseparty with her husband. They bring together their friends we’ve known since meeting them at The Hairy Lemon, four years ago.

There’s a lot that’s fucked, but one perfect thing about the world is the ability to create a chosen family. To surround yourself with people you love. Want to keep around. Watching, year over year, the developments in each other’s lives, how we keep coming together. I have had the privilege in my life to build these perfect little communities, and for now, I am grateful. Happy. Comfortable. Fun. Drinking and smoking in sparkles.

Walking to the bar after the ball dropped, it was bitter cold, and we kept commenting on the fresh air of a new year. I woke up in someone else’s bed the first day of the year. Which was an unexpected and pleasant surprise. I called an Uber at 10 and went back to sleep. I went to a breathwork class with my friend Ghazal. We were guided through breath, and again, I giggle, I sob, big, relieving tears. High frequency. Consistently practicing, arriving, here.

This year feels different. It’s what I’ve been practicing for, building my whole life, kind of vibes of a year. And that is so exciting, so validating, so heartfelt, and how am I supposed to argue with this? This is what I feel, what I believe to be possible, to be true, in this moment, right now. I feel aligned, I feel removed from the past. A whole new human form. It was the year of the snake, shedding, getting into the year of the fire horse. Bro, pedal to the metal. I’m trying to dance a lot more in my living room.

Andy and Anderson took shots on national television, and Mamdani was inaugurated, and all that’s just in the past 24 hours.

I did that witchy thing where you write 13 wishes on 13 slips of paper, and every night from the solstice, you take one and burn it – put it out into the universe, it’s not yours to take care of anymore. And on the last day, whatever slip you are left with is the only one you’re responsible for this year. In my heart of hearts, I put out every wish I wanted for my life. Partnerships for my book, my career, in love, awards, outlet coverage. I had more grounded ones like: stay connected to my body, my friends and family and I are happy and healthy, which was really the ones I wanted to pull. Grounded. Soft. But 13 wishes, actually, is a lot of wishes, so I’m looking at what else I want, what would be good and nice to have for my life: I’m like: 100,000 followers on TikTok. Why not? And then, I’m like, you know what? Diamond ring from the man I love – both on one slip. So that’s the one I’ve pulled, of course. Good luck to me. That’s the one thing I focus on this year. How it happens is another story. The rest is, would you fucking believe it, unwritten.

I really think 2029 is going to be my year, so I’m just working up towards it, and that feels like a runway.