Category Archives: General

This happened a while ago, but the justice system in our country is, ahem, slightly fucked. What can we expect with a convicted felon leading the high office? Makes my minor speeding bump seem like cake compared to a fucking insurrection (see January 6 if you’re totally ignorant). Anyway, I digress…

This story began on a beautiful October morning as I was heading out to see my friend Missy in Connecticut. I’d programmed the destination into my phone and was heading out the prescribed route along Albany Shaker Road when I decided to take an earlier left onto Osborne, as that route was prettier and I hardly ever went that way. The phone would re-route me, so I turned left and then immediately remembered I’d forgotten the requisite bag of Chex mix (in Bold, thank you). Making a quick turnaround to Price Chopper, or Market 32, or whatever that ill-thought-out switch resulted in, I picked up the Chex mix and headed back out. Once again the phone’s route wanted me to stay straight on Albany-Shaker, and for the second time I ignored it, opting for the earlier left turn along a seemingly prettier path.
Sunlight dappled through the fall foliage and I was losing myself in the old-school fall musical mix I made for the ride when I suddenly realized my toiletries bag was back at home. Turning around again, the leisurely trip was becoming a bit too leisurely. Once the bag of lip balm and fragrance was in the car, the original route on the phone was still me to stay the path on Albany-Shaker, and for a third time I dismissed the plan, insisting on going the more beautiful way.

By now a bit behind on my scheduled departure, I was going over the speed limit by let’s say approximately 18 miles per hour, and before I could slow it down, a police officer was frantically waiving his hands and pointing at me from across the street. (I’d learned the hard way that this meant pull over, as opposed to a friendly officer just telling me to pass on and keep moving, which I’d once mistakenly assumed was happening in a speed trap on the Massachusetts Turnpike many years ago.)

Officer Red Head was livid – and so unfathomably angry from the outset that I wondered if I should call Andy. These are dangerous times.

“What are you DOING?!?!” he screamed. And I mean SCREAMED. There was a time, decades ago, when I was rather accustomed to irate cops who had pulled me over, but this was extreme and out of proportion for a speeding charge. My loose plan of asking if it would help if I my husband was a cop, while batting my eyelashes, went out the window as it suddenly felt ill-advised, so I held my tongue and tried to think of de-escalation exercises in the face of this crashing out cop.

Officer Red kept going on a tirade, even after procuring my driver’s license. “You live near here!! You know there’s a school here!! You’re going 18 over the speed limit!!!” His anger seemed to be growing on top of itself, making him more and more angry, and I was unsure how to calm the shit-show down.
“I’m sorry officer,” I said calmly, not wanting to set this temperamental person off any more. He wasn’t quite done, but the yelling had turned to a stern lecture. Maybe he realized he was the only one yelling and getting upset, and at that point he told me to wait there (as opposed to fleeing the scene without my license?)

When he came back a few minute later, he seemed like a totally different person. Handing me my license and a ticket, he spoke like human being and said I could just pay it or go to court, but they were always crowded there I might just want to pay it. I said thank you because at that point it felt best to get away from this person as soon as safely possible. His over-the-top anger had shaken me a bit, haunting me for the whole ride to Connecticut.

Cut to this week. Andy had insisted on going to court and not pleading guilty in an effort to get as few points as possible. After sitting in a packed court-adjacent room at the Colonie Courthouse, the proposed four points were whittled down to zero points, and instead of speeding I’d get a parking by a hydrant citation, with a fine and court fee. Relieved and grateful for no points, we got out of there and waited for the bill to arrive. It came a few days later, and the cost of ignoring the universe after its repeated attempts to keep me on Albany-Shaker was a whopping $325. That’s a whole damn bottle of Tom Ford Cologne.

The lesson for me in all the yelling and screaming, aside from keeping within 10 miles per hour of the posted speed limit, is to listen to the universe when it gently tries to guide you – pay heed to the seemingly minor nudges it makes. In this case, if I’d following the original route after two warnings, I’d have been fine at my 48 miles per hour, and entirely avoided a run-in with Officer Crazy Cranky Pants, as well as the hefty price tag that came along with it.

(The clown show at the court might have to be a totally separate post – oh fuck it, I can sum it up by saying that a stomach-baring half-shirt doesn’t work on every body, and not for any court of law ever.)

Stay safe out there.

It struck me, just as I was editing the photo and video used for this post, that I’m old.

Fifty may not seem old to the kind folks who tell me so, but I feel it.

Well, let me pull back a little – I’m older. Maybe not old – it’s all so relative anyway.

I definitely do feel older, and it hits me when I try to do something like figure out all the new editing options for photos or the latest app. My phone is probably about four or five years old now, and I still haven’t accessed all the photo capabilities because it’s just too overwhelming. When I was younger, I would have jumped at the chance for more filters, accessories, apps to make life easier – now, I just feel overcome by the vast sprawl and unending options now available. It sends my brain into overload, which stops things completely.

My solution to feeling overwhelmed isn’t typically to shut down, but rather isolate and focus on one single goal to be accomplished, or one finite problem to solve. The older I get, the more options there seem to be, and the more opportunities for getting overwhelmed. My mind isn’t as quick and nimble as it once was, nor is it able to absorb or learn things at any sort of quick pace. I’ve intentionally slowed things down in my world to find a more peaceable way of living, so I don’t want that to change – I’m simply going to have to accept the fact that I’ll never access all the paths now available to us. A spiral accented by FOMO now seems to rear its head in my head, and overthinking everything is a bleak downward trend. The only way to stop it is… to stop it.

And so I do.

There is something disturbingly comforting about being in a drunken haze. Not that I miss the drinking in any way, but there’s a darker side of me that misses the option of blacking out on occasion. An unflinching look at the world presently around us, and what’s going on in this country in particular, invites the notion of such glorious oblivion. 

In place of drink, in place of drug, in place of meditation and mindfulness and mourning, I offer this winter theme to act as a balm upon the callous, cruel, ruthlessness of the world at this moment: this is our Winter Obscura. 

Haze and smoke and obfuscation.

Backlit-befuddlement hopelessly and intentionally out-of-focus. 

A veil, a scrim, a cloud – perpetually out of reach, out of touch, out of the realm of what can be seen or contained.

A screen unseen, a film of gauze, a filter that removes the very soul of a subject.

This is the unsettling landscape of Winter Obscura – less a place and more a delirious frame of mind, where our main purpose to is to stay hidden and safe behind a smokescreen of abstract notions and obscure philosophical meanderings. 

There is mystery and confoundment in these parts, and a road that splinters into trails largely untread – in so many ways I’ll be walking new paths right along with you, and putting it out here as it unfolds is treacherous work, risky in all the worst ways. That will make it difficult to read sometimes, but seeing me in difficulty is what the world seems to enjoy most. As I said, we’ll go through it together, no matter how much it hurts, no matter what the repercussions, no matter where it decides to take us. 

Won’t you pull the curtain of obscurity around our four-post bed, enveloping us in a cocoon of winter fuzziness? Confusion bleeds both ways. There is no mystery in the relentlessly hyper-focused clarity of this overly-documented world. That which we need to see shall always be hidden – that which we don’t want to see parades before us at regularly-promoted intervals.

The beauty of our messy lives resides in the blurry haze, the peripheral vision, the exact moment that focus recedes and mystery begins. 

A mad professor, a homeless person, and Albert Einstein on a decent day – my gray hair is a combination of all these archetypal idiocies, and I’m not mad about any of it. On the contrary, I’m rather happily befuddled by how to even style such a growing monstrosity, simply running my fingers through it with some leave-in conditioning cream, and calling it a day. I peer at the bedraggled results in the mirror, the slightest bit dismayed but mostly bemused. Equal parts frightful and frightened, but unafraid to say as much. Bleak and blunt too. A strange start to a New Year and a new winter, and somewhat powerful in that. A man with nothing left to lose is still just a man. Power comes from something more. 

What you are about to encounter on this website as it turns the page on the calendar year may be a stark and shattering change – with an emphasis on words over images, structure over surface, and subtle shading over colorful saturation. Bleak of vision, blunt of delivery, and devoid of sugar-coated sweetness, all I can say is that the new year of this blog will not be for anyone of honesty, truth, and the raw, messy reality of this moment. 

I’ve always been rather revealing here – literally and figuratively. I’ve delved into stories in which I don’t always come off as heroic or even basically decent. I’ve shaded the hurtful actions of others so as to protect them, putting a rosy tint on events where others could have and perhaps should have come off as the thoughtless perpetrators of inadvertent cruelty. 

It’s not even clear to myself why I felt such a need to turn bad experiences into something good, to turn a shitty moment into something golden, but it’s an art form I’ve come close to perfecting. I can take a cutting instance of wrong, attach some pictures, and write it into a moment of prettiness and beauty – a lesson to be learned, wrapped in a lovely ribbon and packaged with the most exquisite wrapping. There are times that call for such a re-framing, and perhaps that was my purpose for a whole; there is certainly more than enough ugliness in this world wide web of social media mayhem. 

But it’s not my job to make your world pretty. I don’t get paid to put a handsome spin on things for your enjoyment or ease. I find greater peace in stating things as they are and portraying people by their actions, not how I want them to be or what my feelings or personal interpretations of them may be. 
This reads, on the surface, as a very good shift. For those whose actions mirror their intent and line up with their proclaimed values and words, it will be. For those who say they care but whose actions repeatedly hurt others, it may not go as well. Happily, there is no point in getting mad at the truth. 
Too many of us operate in that hazy, obscure shadow of emotional confusion, creating obfuscating distractions to get away with questionable actions and behavior. I’m simply not tolerating that anymore, and the wild sort of abandon and freedom I feel is going to be the messy sort of fodder that often results in some must-read blog posts.

Hold onto your hats, Winter Obscura is here…

Nature cleans her house with violent storms and dramatic motions. She tears down old tree limbs, sending them plummeting to the ground (and sometimes somebody’s roof), clears swaths of brush with cutting winds, and fells entire growing seasons of delicate flowers with a single freezing night. She is gorgeously, diabolically ruthless, and decidedly unsentimental about it. Pulling no punches, she delivers her death blows in heartless fashion, seemingly void of compassion.

It’s what I’d mistakenly thought of as ‘The Cleaving’, and there’s some argument to be made that that is what’s happening – a brutal pruning of spent and unproductive objects, things in need of rejuvenation or entire excising or retirement. It’s important to know when to leave the party, and nature always knows. That’s not the actual definition of cleaving, however, which has a deliciously double meaning that can be either a splitting of something, like wood, or the sticking or adhering of something to something else.

If all goes according to Virgo plan, that may be what’s coming up on this new season of ALANILAGAN.com, and for the start of the 23rd year of this online mayhem, there will be our own little cleaving – a splitting off of that which we no longer need, and a holding close of all that remains dear. It will absolutely cut both ways. The excess and rich colors of Mr. Oud’s sumptuous and perfumed finery shall be relegated to memory. In place of that will be a blank canvass, cleared of fussy clutter, sparse of accessories and accoutrements. An expanse of emptiness, an expanse of clarity, a meditative space where I will decide what needs to go, and what needs to remain.

That makes this season sound more ominous than I hope it will be. There is no threat here, there is no danger. What needs to happen will play out as it’s all meant to happen, and there’s no sense in worrying or wondering why or what might be. If this sounds confusing or unclear to you, it is just as confounding to me, and that’s sort of what I want to explore for the next few months – not only here on this blog but in an upcoming project as well. Finding my footing in writing again has brought me back to basics, and putting things down on paper, both literally in a coffeeshop, and proverbially on a personal website, allows for a helpful introspective examination of what’s happened in the past, and what continues to happen. It’s a diary, it’s a therapy session, it’s a messy fucking Broadway show – and it plays out in plain view for anyone who wants to click on over here. A new year of analyses and awesomeness has begun –

Welcome to Winter Obscura… ~ A.

While it felt like I should be lamenting all that was 2025, in looking back at what my year was like as I wrote the year in review, I found that there was actually quite little to complain about – nothing that merits mention when taken in consideration with more important matters. And so, rather than whisk the year away (because who knows how absolutely awful 2026 might be) I’m pausing and taking my own advice to appreciate what is at hand in the present moment, and to allow my own headspace to be in complete control of its reaction and the narrative it chooses to write for the future.

The weight of snow on evergreen branches will always be more than the weight of the tree’s history – a striking and simple illustration of how nature doesn’t let the past move it as much as the present. The snow, ice and wind of the current day will always be the biggest battle – not what came before or what might come tomorrow. That’s the proper way to end the year.

Putting this year into the past cannot happen soon enough, so without much further ado and fanfare, and with no more than one linky post (as opposed to the usual two posts that a year in review typically deserves) let’s rifle through our weekly recaps instead of giving a more detailed encapsulation. Some people want the comprehensive links – most of you don’t bother with comprehensive anything (and right now I am joining you in that).

JANUARY 2025:

The year began innocently enough, with some comfort food to keep us warm.

Keeping things toasty seemed to be our initial theme.

Winter droned on the way it usually does in January.

But that didn’t deter this guy from posing only in his underwear.

FEBRUARY 2025:

David Beckham was back bulging in his underwear to kick off the month of February.

The 20th anniversary of ‘The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale’ found the never-clamored-for online debut of this infamous project.

Some weekly recaps were simply super, especially when bowls are involved.

Florals for February did indeed feel somewhat groundbreaking.

MARCH 2025:

Divinity drifted throughout March, as did the floral motif.

Lost my shirt and an hour in this recap.

Sheer and silly pajamas couldn’t hide my Calvin Klein briefs in these outtakes from The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale, hence their outtake status.

Pink-cupped dreams and floral peeks at spring.

The blustery end of March came with this cozy recap.

APRIL 2025:

Robert Irwin fronted this bulging recap with his underwear and it was no April Fool’s joke.

She was bathed in pastels.

Easter Monday, if there is such a thing and I think there is.

Robert Irwin wasn’t quite ready to put on clothes, so he closed April without a shirt.

MAY 2025:

May was a special month, bringing with it our 15th wedding anniversary, and it began in lucky and cloudy fashion.

Mother’s Day was special too.

May’s magic was in full effect, even as we looked ahead to summer.

There were plenty of powerful posts happening, as seen in this recap that welcomed viewers in with Theo James in a skimpy white Speedo.

JUNE 2025:

June will always be Pride Month, no matter what the current government tries to do.

Build me up buttercup in June’s bright, cheery glory.

Hot florals as summer arrives, baby!

Poppies, peonies and iris are how summer properly starts.

Our island summer theme went into watery swing, and the poppies kept popping.

JULY 2025:

Summer turned to high with our annual BroSox Adventure finding Skip and I back in Boston and rip-roaring form.

Cranking the heat, our island interim provided respite and relief.

Bittersweet summer days.

A singularly happy week on the blog found us celebrating the birthday of my godson and the 25th anniversary of when Andy and I met each other.

AUGUST 2025:

Shit took a turn in August, as it did for many Virgos, and still people keep coming for us. Fools, mostly.

Flesh and pubic hair fronted and back-ended this fun recap.

Drama ensued for the final days of my 40’s, and for once I wasn’t the cause of it.

When I turned fifty, I realized I was out of fucks to give. We are all in for a fun year!

SEPTEMBER 2025:

A silver-haired recap befitting a fifty-year-old man.

The recaps of turning fifty were fun too.

Too many of us forget that summer lasts through most of September.

Eventually, though, fall arrives, and this year mystery arrived as well.

Whispers of fall intrigue carried on the cooler winds.

OCTOBER 2025:

When October arrived, so too did the mysterious Mr. Oud.

Fall held its own magic and allure.

This recap fell on Andy’s birthday, celebrating that and our annual Ogunquit fall trip.

Six years of not drinking marked the end of October.

NOVEMBER 2025:

Apparently the first November recap fell on a mother-fucking Monday, at least according to the pen.

Jonathan Bailey made this the sexiest recap alive.

(And he proceeded to grant shirtless goodness in the weeks that came after.)

There should be something more profound about the posts here, but all I can think is that this one is for the armpit fetishists and nothing else matters.

DECEMBER 2025:

A cozy candlelit post begins December while the rest of the world crumbles.

The more I wrote about and lamented holiday mayhem, the smoother and less-stressed the holidays became. For me. (And what else matters?)

My holiday card was erected by the holiest of Christmas spirit (and be careful not to stroke, I mean choke on it).

Closing out this year, you get a hint of what’s to come in fuzzy, hazy, obscure form…

Most of us are keeping the holiday lights burning through mid-January – we’ve only just turned the corner on gaining daylight hours, so we still need all the candles and Christmas lights to see us through these darkened days and nights. The concept of hygge comes to mind and we shall lean into that during the coming weeks. Red and ivory tapers lend light and warmth to any space and are the easiest way to transform a place into a cozier scene. Scandi design employs lots of candles during winter months, which may play a part in how well they navigate this dim season.

For my efforts in harnessing the hygge energy, I’m getting back into the baking scene, such as these lemon cardamom sweet rolls and this Danish bread, pumpkin seed disaster be damned. The Danish bread is hearty and rustic, ideal for carrying smoked salmon or deli meats with some creme fraiche and fresh dill. It’s also been a while since I’ve baked any bread loaf, and that’s an idea way to conjure a cozy environment.

So much of life is about seeing busy to distract us from thinking too much – at least I assume that’s why we do so many ridiculous activities. My baseline is more contemplative than that, but I do find solace and value in baking and cooking, along with sitting still beside a burning candle. Winter unfurls…

This Wednesday may (and I mean may) bring with it a yearly review for 2025, but as of the moment of this writing and its requisite weekly recap, I’m already over looking back at anything, particularly if it relates to anything from 2025. That said, I’ll give it my best shot, and for now there’s this look back at the previous week, because it’s Monday morning…

Apologies to all the Peggys.

The path to a possible holiday stroll, which I had all but ruled out earlier this year, was not clear at its outset.

It took a while to feel which way the universe was sending me, and it was a winding and wondrous journey.

Ultimately, the holiday stroll happened in the most unlikely of circumstances…

… and with the most unlikely of people, which also made it one of my favorite strolls of all.

Christmas often happens that way – in unexpected and magical twists and turns – and this year I decided to chose calm over chaos.

That meant I felt all sorts of Christmas cheer, more than I’ve allowed myself to feel in decades.

Exploding Christmas like Dynamite!

This is the second-best day to work.

Can’t take any more of this heartbreak.

Friday night candlelight.

The last weekend of the year.

Decaf drinkers unite!

An American cafe moment.

Shifting dynamics before the year ends.

Insult to injury.

Eye of a Sunday hurricane.

Our last Sunday of the calendar year is finally upon us. Amid this chaotic, purgatorial week, I pause on this evening and seek out a moment of clarity and calm – the typical goal of an average week, and ever-elusive more often than not.

My careful formality of wording and phrasing has been getting repetitive and annoying to my ears and eyes. Re-reading the beginning of this post is giving me an annoyed sense of dissatisfaction, bordering on frustration, and then I force myself not to care, not to edit, not to modify – because this is practice for the new year to come on this blog. Ready to get raw?

The formalness and fine-pointed methods I try to put forth in these posts are about to be bludgeoned and bulldozed into oblivion. If you hear me getting a little too precious, slap me silly. We are long past the point for being precious, unless you’re channeling Gollum. Or Buffalo Bill. And I’m not sure either of those two examples should be our guides…

Strap on and strap in… 2026 won’t be no cake walk.

Four people sit at the next table over from me on this evening of cafe culture. The two college-age daughters, if I may not so boldly assume them to be, are bent over their phones, entirely disengaged and unaware of everything around them. The father, again assumed, is also on his phone, tapping and scrolling awkwardly in comparison to his daughters. The mother, odd woman out, sits there with her head resting in her hand, looking half-bored and half-disgusted. Also completely resigned and unsurprised by the total lack of social interaction by her surrounding family.

Is this the new American dream?

Being alone together?

I’m not invested enough to feel sad for any of them. For all I know they are having the best time of their lives. Different strokes for different folks, right?

Speaking of ‘Different Strokes’, I really miss ‘The Facts of Life‘…

My mind is still a frightening place to be.

Forgive me if I’m a little quick to usher out the year that was 2025. Does anyone really think this was a good year? And what kind of fucked-up person are you if this was your idea of good? Check yourself and your beliefs. Emotionally exhausted, mentally spent, and physically older than I’ve ever been in my entire fucking life, I am hurtling toward the calendar’s finish line as fast as I can. There’s still enough time to stumble wildly and fall, and I reserve that right straight through the entire next year. Add it to my list of faltering and fumbling – no need to check it twice.

Don’t anyone dare ask what mischief might be made in less than a week lefty because OMG how quickly and easily will I show you. A challenge, a threat, and a promise all in one – my bread and butter, my creme brulee, my fancy feast, my what the hell am I even writing anymore? This crazy-ass post has been brought to you by the letter ‘A’ and all the fucking madness of the previous year.

Closing out the week with a quietly-candlelit post we just have one more holiday to go… and then what? Ah, there’s the terror and the rub. We race to this week then it’s done, and there’s suddenly nothing else to do. That used to be my conundrum, but for the last few years I’ve modified my perspective, shifting how I built things up in anticipation, what I wanted as a result, and how I kept the spirit going beyond one single week. The main difference I made was pushing out the idea of hygge deep into the winter. The winter season has only just begun, and it hardly ends with the completion of the holidays.

A spindly little tree lit only in white lights and holding no ornaments or decorations, stays erected in the attic until February. Andy will keep our real tree watered and lit until Little Christmas. And the cozy baking and sweet treats will see us all the way into March.

Hygge is the best way to get through the winter, and it’s here now…

Taking second place only to the day after Thanksgiving, this is one of my favorite days to be in the office. Quiet and conducive to catch-up and clean-up work, it’s the ideal work day for anyone overly-tied by the presence of human beings at this tail-end of the year (or in my case any damn given day of every year, take your pick).

An entire year of working in Human Resources, added upon the previous nineteen years of HR work, comes with a certain exhaustion, especially for those of us who find human interactions relatively low on our priority list. Some careers choose those with the most to learn, to challenge and expand our views of the word, and hopefully we can give a fresh and unorthodox viewpoint of established practices. I’m not sure how much of the above has been accomplished, but I keep at it, I keep trying, and on days like today I keep endeavoring to make things a little better for all of us keeping at it.

For those who may have missed my holiday photo card, here’s a fun reminder, and a scandalous GIF below. The high holiday week is upon us – may your hands be filled with Christmas spirit and all that jizz… let’s erect this holiday recap in the best sense of the word…

Let us remember what really matters in every season.

This President is anything but Presidential. WTF?

Speak softly and carry a big…

The right chocolate chip ratio in a muffin.

Not-so-great expectations deliver happier results.

Virgo: the best of signs, the worst of signs.

All is fair in vanity (LOL at these clowns!)

Returning to ritual and writing in a secret code language.

Christmas Eve was made for sequins.

Therapy tease and breathtaking breakthrough.

Leaning into the holiday mess and learning to love it.

Finally, a necklace with my name on it.

Holiday Druther’s.

Mr. Oud sprinkles a dash of sparkle in his wake, leaving behind a tell-tale scent, and a memory of what was or wasn’t.

Potential autobiography title: Pissing On Shirttails.

My favorite thing to sit upon might be exactly what you think it is.

The welcome arrival of winter is at hand.

The Next FAFO Award goes to a very worthy recipient… Elise Stefanik. A local legend for all the wrong reasons.

Winter wishing well.

One of the traditions that Andy taught me a quarter of a century ago was the burning of wishes on the seasonal equinoxes. It is on this day when we write our wishes/intentions for the upcoming winter on a piece of paper, then light them up for the universe to take up in its arms and manifest their hopeful completion.

Wishes and prayers sent phoenix-like into the sky – and a winter sky is often the wondrous and mysterious of all the seasonal skies. Sometimes you have to look very closely to find its beauty and distinction, but when you finally unlock that that secret, it opens up a world of subtle ambiguous gorgeousness. Shifting perspective is a vital component of enjoying winter; without the cold, there can be no coziness.