Blog years are like dog years, and the life of a personal blog is, on average, remarkably short. That this site has lasted for 21 years is less a miracle and more a testament to my dogged and persistent drive to put down events, no matter how mundane or simple, into words in an effort to understand them and work through them. For the most part, once I write about something I’m able to let it go in some small way, having acknowledged and honored whatever it might be. 

Last year we celebrated the 20th anniversary of ALANILAGAN.com with a series of nostalgic look-backs at what the previous two decades had brought. It was a rare exercise of momentarily living in the past to see how much had changed, how much had stayed the same, and how much no longer even mattered. My favorite writer at the Times Union wrote this fabulous piece about the blog for Pride Month (and I had my typical over-analytical reaction in an entirely-unnecessary navel-gazing that went on for two wretched blog posts). 

As we enter the 21st year of sharing all the nonsense here, I won’t get too long-winded as these other posts capture all the looking-back I want to do right now:

• Spilling the tea for over twenty years

• Sipped or spilled, the tea here is always hot

• Tea tease

• Putting the kettle on

• Prepping for a two-decade salute

• This was 20

• Twenty years of naked titillation

• Diary of a half-life

• A cup of tea with Oscar

• Hot tea amid a snowy night

• A Double Decade of Revelations

• The eyes of nostalgia

• Still click-baiting in my underwear

This year, my website is officially drinking age – and perhaps there is some irony in that since I no longer drink. (My generation is still a little fuzzy on the real meaning of irony, thank you Alanis Morrissette.) It is but one of the many changes that have occurred in the life of this blog. More are on the way, and 2024 looks to be a quietly transformative year. Those are often the most powerful ones – and the ones that change everything, always for the better. 

As for what is to come as we celebrate the 21st birthday of this place, I am planning to keep things relatively quiet for the first part of the year, winding through winter in stillness and silence whenever possible, taking things gently. Sometimes looking back can wear a guy out. Time for more tea…

I’m currently in the camp of Swifties – lovers of Taylor Swift – thanks to her last three albums, which I found exquisite, particularly ‘folklore‘ and ‘evermore‘. That said, even I was starting to get a little annoyed at her when every Chiefs game seemed to be an opportunity to showcase her fantics and support for Travis Kelce. At first, it was fun to see the camera spot her, as it was the only person in the game that I knew, then it became wearying. In the same way that the camera would find her dancing awkwardly at some awards show, I inwardly cringed a bit. 

Why? For the dancing part, it was just the sheer awkwardness of it, something my own previously-perfectionist tendencies would have been mortified to witness. Totally unfair, and unjustified, especially when her way of existing in the world – embracing her awkwardness despite the haters – is the more peaceable and healthy way of living. 

For the football part of it, I had no real reason for hating on her, and as soon as I thought about that, it no longer bothered me. In fact, I wondered at my own bitterness for finding fault with someone so clearly enamored and finding joy in celebrating her new boyfriend. Haven’t we all been there? I’ll never begrudge someone who wants to celebrate love. (Well, within tasteful reason, which is what Taylor and Travis Kelce have thus far exhibited.) Haters are gonna hate, and there’s no point in trying to argue with them. 

It does bring me to the point of this post, which came up on social media as the debate about Taylor and Travis raged, and it boiled it all down to something I didn’t even think about as I was working it out in my head:

The good news: it’s late January, and we are almost finished with the first full month of winter, meaning we’re over a third of the way through the messy season. The bad news: there’s two-thirds of it yet to come. Thus far it’s been relatively calm in this mid-upstate-New-York area, and I’m grateful for the gentle way we are navigating these months. On with the weekly recap… (fronted by Brock Grady)…

We tried to bring the heat with these pretty, shirtless gentlemen. 

Beer abandonment issues.

Gay art, then and now.

Send in the Boston clowns.

Pages of hope & inspiration.

Baggy jeans to see us through the winter padding.

Mystery tracks in the snow.

Once in a while, Barbra Streisand truly speaks to me. 

Some daze.

Let us have flowers.

This summer is gonna be LOUD.

The wink of a winter sky.

When you feel like a failure, put on the Fucking Fabulous.

The Selfish showdown between Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears.

Dazzlers of the Day included Robbie Manson, Colman Domingo, Brock Grady, R. K. Russell, and Jack Plotnick.

The last weekend of January has arrived. Limping through it, I admit I’m a bit tired, and having difficulty finding motivation and inspiration to be excited over much. I’ve found myself going through the motions rather than being present and mindful – never a good thing, but understandable at this early point in winter. 

To make a small motion to turn things around, or gently feel the whispers of happiness and excitement, if only that means being open to the smallest glimpse of beauty in a day, I listen to a classic Madonna track or two (the exuberant ‘Open Your Heart‘ or the rollicking ‘Ray of Light‘), I clutch a bottle of Tom Ford’s ‘Fucking Fabulous’ before spraying some of that exquisite Private Blend onto my skin, and I go back out into the world, no matter the mood or weather. The day can be what you make it. Sometimes. 

A crescent moon winks at the dawn of dusk, if you can make much sense of that. It doesn’t come across clearly in these amateurish photos I attempted to take, but the idea is there, and during the winter an idea sometimes has to be enough. The idea that something could be cradled in the curve of a crescent moon is merely that – an idea. There is no empty space there – it’s filled with moon. We just can’t see it. Somewhere there’s an allegory to an iceberg in this, but it’s cold to delve into, and I’m not interested in following that path right now.

It’s Saturday night, I guess that makes it all right. (And anything is better than a full moon.)

Like many days since my Dad died, I spent the last few weeks in a bit of a haze, dazedly going about life’s daily routine on a sort of auto-pilot. After 48 years of living, sometimes you coast like that. It’s not my favored status. I’m not one for phoning things in (and not just because I hate talking in the phone). If I’m not wholly invested in something, I usually don’t do it. That’s not always possible with a job and mortgage and the basic responsibility of surviving.

And so I daze off, lost in a kind of soft focus, not totally or completely present. I can’t tell if anyone notices, and I’m not sure if that’s because I don’t want to know. The power of wishful thinking is a real thing. Rather than go too hard on myself, I’m accepting this, and waiting until I feel the stir of motivation. If it doesn’t come, it doesn’t come. The big chill is a real middle-aged issue, and there are good and bad things that come from it. A certain dulling and deadness to the world as it now stands isn’t entirely unwelcome.