Category Archives: General

This may be the first year in which I am genuinely excited to welcome in winter. We’ve flirted in the past, because it does take a certain courting period to get me to warm up to, well, anything. Lately though, I’ve been leaning into the season of rest and slumber, embracing its icy beauty, and wondering at its life-lessons.

I think it started with the last couple of winters Dad was with us in our old home. To give Mom a break, and to spend time with my father, I’d take a day off from work and drive to Amsterdam, setting up camp while Mom ran errands or just took some time for herself. On the dim gray days, I’d light candles and make tea, then join Dad for whatever black and white movie was on television.

In the early days of his decline, he’d peruse his paper, and later on a worn collection of fake money. We’d amble in to the kitchen for whatever lunch Mom had left for me to heat up, and if the sun was out all the light would pour into the kitchen like it did for so much of my childhood. Back when he could get around, we’d take brief walks outside, but in winter we could only take a walk through the dining room and living room, where he’d pause and look out the windows.

Sometimes we’d sit in the living room – the place of Christmases past, and birthday parties, and extended family dinner gatherings – the space where the most special events played out, and then the most important event of them all: time with my father.

We’d have a few more summer days together too, but it’s those winter ones I remember at this time of the year – and I’m very grateful to have had them; they taught me to embrace this season of slowing down. While the wind and snow whipped around outside, the stillness and calm inside cast its own meditative spell.

This winter I’m looking forward to the quiet that follows the holidays, the way candles can flicker and glow even in the daylight, and the slow shift of the sun as it begins elongating the days. The stark, lean, cruel beauty of tinter – we will take our time, letting the days slowly pass, growing longer one by one…

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.

There was a day this past summer – after a stretch of several 90+ degree days – that I found myself walking languidly through the greenhouses at Faddegon’s Nursery, melting and sweating through a tank top and shorts, cursing the extreme heat and humidity, and ducking intermittently into the air-conditioned gift shop section while seeking out a friendly Australian tree fern that wouldn’t instantly expire after a single missed watering (to no avail).

Face flushed, peeling the front of my shirt away from my skin in quick fanning movements, I’m sweaty and uncomfortable on this hot summer day…

I think longingly of that discomfort as I pull a chunky cable-knit cardigan tighter to my chest today.

The greenhouse is deliciously different at night, especially in the winter months. Cooler in atmosphere and hue, it carries a more hushed vibe to it, quieter and more somber somehow, even with the vibrant poinsettias and flaming heads of cyclamen.

Being in the greenhouse around Christmas, especially in the early evening, always brings to mind the melting scene in ‘Frosty the Snowman’ – one of the more traumatic Christmas moments for a kid just trying to find joy in a song brought to animated life.

Tonight marks the calm before the storm of this year’s online holiday photo card reveal. Sitting before the tree, a green candle throwing its warm light over my meditation space, I begin the slow breathing that constitutes my daily meditation. A necessity for the winter months, it also comes in handy during any stresses that come up during the holiday season (of which there are often many).

Here, the noise of the day – and the noise of the season – immediately cease. Externally and internally, the world quiets. The atmosphere slows. The motion of time stills. Only the breath marks any sort of temporal movement. Even there, it feels more measured, more calm. Within ready grasp, the opportunity for meditation is a portal to peace. The importance of this presents itself more distinctly at this time of the year. How strange, this being the Prince of Peace’s time to shine and be born, that we should find calm and tranquility so elusive.

I find them in these meditations, carried out near the Christmas tree, surrounded by the sweet smell of pine, and lit by the glow of a candle.

When a bank calls you at 8 o’clock in the morning, asking if you can get in touch with a former family member that you haven’t seen in at least a year, someone may not be living their best life (allegedly).

(I don’t want to write a long-ass post about this, much as everyone would want to read it… so hopefully my name won’t be connected to this person in the future.)

#TinyThreads

You sometimes don’t realize how much the quiet people are part of our holiday traditions and histories until they’re not there. Dad was one such person, choosing mostly to stay to himself in the family room, watching his OTB and perusing his papers while the rest of us went about our holiday antics. He’d join us for dinner, and gift opening, but even there he was often quiet, blending into the background and going through the motions. At the time, I didn’t understand it, and wanted him to be more present; now I see things very clearly his way, and very much relate to wanting to be a quiet but not wholly participatory in the mayhem. All that noise, noise, noise… the Grinch wasn’t wrong about everything.

As I got older, and especially in the last few years he was cognizant and aware of what was going on, I would tend to spend more time next to him. Not actively talking or taking part in his betting operation, but just to be out of the line of sensory overload. He had a calming aura to him, despite his occasional outbursts, and I sensed a kindred spirit there that I never quite appreciated when I was a kid. I miss that.

The other morning a pair of cardinals insistently made themselves known in the seven son’s flower tree. As I sat working at the dining room table, they fluttered and flew – bright bits of scarlet in the sky and in the branches. I wondered what they wanted me to understand, what message they brought from their world to mine.

I still don’t know.

It has come to my attention that very few people saw my first Christmas Wish List when I put it up early here for everyone’s convenience, so I’m re-upping it, with a few new additions since there is still time to order anything based on how good I’ve been this year in the face of such adversity. (There’s also my Amazon wish list here, still in effect.)

We begin with the latest Tom Ford Private Blend – ‘Figue Erotique’ found here – which sounds extremely promising given my penchant for all things fig, and somewhat prohibitive given the exorbitant price tag – I’d settle for a 30 ml size to blunt that edge.

Let’s continue more reasonably, with this stripped cashmere sweater on a super sale at Macy’s right now – a size medium should suffice. For some holiday flare, rustic-style, there is this Weatherproof Vintage plaid shirt, in medium.

I’m a sucker for a duster, and this one in turquoise and gold velvet from Soft Surroundings is simply too dreamy; a size XL would work well. I can see this helming a winter dinner party with a few select guests, and you can totally see me in it too.

Not that I need a portal to any more fragrance opportunities, but of late I’ve been obsessed with the House of Amouage, which has a sampler set on sale at Jomashop here. (And there’s a full bottle of this banger on a big sale right now.) Is it reasonable?

Nothing is reasonable at the holidays. That’s what makes them so special.

These blog posts are getting away from me – as is this holiday season – and I’m taking it all with a lighter touch. Laughter induces warmth, so I’ve been embracing the silliness at hand now, the absurdity of life, and all the things that once annoyed and bothered me to the point where I simply had to speak out are now fodder for chuckles and giggles. Nothing worth getting upset over, and no harm to anyone other than myself when I overthink them.

In a fall season that found things getting entirely too serious, when a darker turn of the world and the people I knew in it caused consternation and concern, I found myself in the unaccustomed role of empath, and that’s just not a role I’m equipped to handle. Nothing personal, and that’s really the best way to move through the world right now – not personally.

Truth, even unto its innermost parts.

Truth outs in the end.

Even in the holidays.

Yes, the holidays! Oh snap!

Unbeknownst to you until I explain it in this very moment, I’ve started my second notebook of ramblings since returning to this cafe culture method of writing, old-school-style. Part of the first notebook, and this one as well, surely, is filled with rough ideas and passages for a new project. My whiskers are receptive to new notions on the coming winter wind, and once we switch from holiday mode to the New Year, work on that will take precedence over much else. Until then, we have Mr. Oud to make his holiday rounds before – POOF! – he disappears into the ether region.

A word of warning for those who have enjoyed Mr. Oud’s occasional presence and his fall theme: when he goes away, he won’t say good-bye or stand on any sort of ceremony. He’s an Irish farewell kind of guy even on the most connected day – to expect a fanfare for departure is foolishness bordering on willful stupidity. Do better with your anticipatory ideas! Hmmph!!!! All right, or maybe it’s all wrong, whatever the case, it’s time to end this post, and I’ve reached the bottom of the first page of this new notebook – a very good place to stop.