Author Archives: Alan Ilagan

Finally found a necklace with my name on it.

(Yo, I got jokes too!)

#TinyThreads

“How are you doing?” my therapist asked as I sat down on her couch for an extra holiday-edition of therapy. I’d scheduled it anticipating the usual emotional mayhem, but strangely found myself without much to talk about, mostly because I’d dealt with and addressed what had been bothering me directly as it came up.

“I’m doing pretty well,” I began. “And I’m surprisingly not stressed out at all over this holiday season.”

“Well, you’re the only person who has said that to me!” she replied.

I consider that some sort of therapeutic breakthrough – in addition to some genuine progress in how I’ve reached at this stress-free moment of living. Arriving at the final weeks of 2025, in the year that found me turning fifty years old, one of those indelible light-bulb revelations of understanding lit up in my head – the kind that, once ignited and seen, can never be turned off altogether or forgotten. It’s rare to have such moments, and even rarer to realize them as they are happening. It’s also not something Ive fully processed or formulated into words – similar to the way I stopped drinking, which hinged on a internal realization, and, more importantly, a deep and profound understanding of and connection to that realization.

This time around the lesson/revelation is a simple but powerful one – that we are in complete command of our world. Not in what precisely happened to us on any given day – we don’t always have a say in what the world doles out – but in how we react and deal with whatever happens.

That’s right – whatever happens.

If it’s not impressing you with the weight and magnitude of what that means you may be like I was for the last fifty years; I knew it in some abstract, universal truth sort of way, but never truly made the connection until recently.

There’s so much more to say on it, and I’m not equipped or able to do that here. Not yet. It is, however, the ideal launching pad for a brand new calendar which quickly approaches, and we head into our 23rd year here at ALANILAGAN.com…

Writing these blog entries used to be accomplished almost entirely on my lap-top, directly into my antiquated WordPress set-up. That still happens, especially for the shorter ‘Tiny Threads‘ or ‘Dazzler of the Day‘ featurettes, but lately I’ve returned to writing these out in old-school cursive (a dying art), filling notebooks that have long been blank, gifts from dear friends, finally being utilized. In the same way that I’ve returned to writing in a nearby cafe, so too have I returned to longhand writing, in the ancient art form of cursive. (It’s like a whole secret and indecipherable language that the young people cannot even read.)

This is more than a return to physical habits and placements, it’s a return to a profound ritual that has informed my life and always worked to help me figure things out during times of doubt or uncertainty. (The more honest I am with myself, the more these moments tend to materialize.) And so I write, letting thoughts become words, and words fall onto and fill paper. There is something more meaningful about writing these words out by hand – a greater connection between mind and body that creates some sort of covenant between what my head thinks, what my heart feels, what my hand writes, and how my intentions are put forth into the universe.

More practically, this format also tends to improve my writing in a technical sense. When I enter blog posts directly into a lap-top, it instantly appears perfect and finished, giving the very misleading look of completion to it. When I write this out on paper first, it can be messy and jumbled and incomplete, with crossed-out words and phrases, arrows to re-order ideas, and all sorts of raw and unedited mistakes. When forced to type it all out again, I am able to edit and ideally improve on what I might just have otherwise go live because it looked good enough.

There is always room for improvement, and often that does with looking at the same thing in a very different way. It’s practice, and honing, and accepting the ideas that while nothing is perfect, the notions of betterment, of learning, of seeing opportunities of evolution, all exist – a helpful reminder that the work will never be done. What a happy and reassuring thought for all of us who enjoy a challenge and a purpose: the work will never be done.

I’ve always loved ‘Vanity Fair’ and lately it’s become one of the only reliable sources at a time when the others seem to have given in to propaganda and fascism. Check out this brilliant article, based on audio recordings of its participants. (I say that as they are all acting like they never said what they actually said, on tape.) It’s the lying that might bother me most about the current administration – they just keep lying, and the media just repeats it without check or push-back. Sad times.

And brilliant photographic work by Christopher Anderson – no filter, no photoshop – real, honest, and true to who these people are – ugly from the inside out.

It should be no secret that I find Donald Trump to be the worst President our country has ever had, and also one of the worst people the world has known. Despite several FAFO posts, and the occasional anti-Trump post here and there and otherwheres, I have tried to keep this place as free from politics as possible. It’s my escape from such awfulness, but I’ve had to get vocal sometimes so that future generations, should any electronic echoes of my posts or feelings on this administration persist, know that I fought this terrible person at every step of the way. If anyone wants to know what I did when it was happening, it’s documented here. Hope you have something similar when your kids ask what you did.

His latest post on Rob Reiner is just confirmation of his deplorable views. For those who want to employ the ‘both sides’ mentality (or, how the news has ruined itself) let’s take a comparative look at two takes on this. Here is President Barack Obama’s message, followed by Trump’s. I know what side I’m on, and it’s the side I’ve always been on: the side of basic human decency.

The week of a holiday photo card reveal always sparkles with a bit more festive excitement than a typical week here, and the 30th anniversary of my very first holiday card demanded the erection of something special. An extra GIF from this year’s holiday card photo shoot gives a glimpse of what happened outside the borders of the main image. To that hard candy Christmas happy ending, let’s go through the weekly blog recap…

A reminder for anyone who needs it.

Daikon and kabocha dreams.

I’ve always loved fonts.

A new notebook in another cafe.

A holiday snap!

Not just NA beer.

Christmas wish list re-upped.

A scarlet-feathered hello.

When I start getting dragged into things because someone is still using the family name, I begin to speak out.

Sonnet 29.

Three decades of holiday photo cards.

Things just got out of hand.

Holiday, meditation.

The holiday photo card 2025: the hardest card I’ve ever shot.

Stride with me, or get out of the way.

Sweet stephanotis.

The greenhouse in a different light.

Of course Tom Ford is a Virgo.

Madonna: promising in pink.