December 2025

Happy new year! I hope you had a good holiday season, and that 2026 is maximally joyful and fun.

I’m writing this from beautiful North Carolina, where M and I spent our Christmas. It was a pretty quiet Christmas season, but that was largely caused by something I mentioned last month:

A Life Thing that I’m not going to describe in detail took up a lot of my mental capacity — I now know that this is going to be Totally Fine, and I am No Longer Worried, but the situation is not yet fully resolved.

This continued into this month — I had two Severely Atypical moles which needed additional surgical attention. I spent just under half this month with stitches on my chest and back, and am still required to avoid strenuous activity. It sucks to be relatively sedentary, but I’m glad that this has been taken care of. I should also mention: there was no sign of melanoma in either of these spots. It’s all good!

This did lead to us having a relatively-subdued holiday season, and M’s birthday was also relatively quiet.

M got me a new camera, which I’m really enjoying — the Ricoh GR IV. Here’s some of my favorite photos I’ve taken with it so far:

Two dogs playing, in action
A photograph out a window from a stairwell leads to a high-contrast jumble of lines and angles. Outside the window, you can see overhead rail supports, an elevated train track, and the blur of cars and a truck on an even-higher-up overpass. The interior lights from the stairwell paint contrasting lines onto the window, with the gaps between railings adding grids of light to the center of the frame, and a diagonal light cutting across the left side. Finally, the photographer is lit from behind, reflected in the window, near the top right.
A woman looking down and to her left with some trees behind her, with the wind blowing her hair
A woman, dramatically lit by the match she's holding to light a candle on a cupcake

I enjoyed the shortened Advent of Code this year; this year marks the second time I’ve ever beaten it On Time.

At Mobius, we announced our fundraising round, with some lovely articles having been written about us, which was delightful.

music

Here’s the new music playlist for December:

And my list of my 20 favorite tracks to come out of 2025:

There’s some really great songs that came out this year — I hope you’ll consider sharing that playlist. 🙂

writing

films

This month, I watched 7 films:

  • Demi Adejuyigbe: Is Going to Do One (1) Backflip — (no rating)
  • Scott Pilgrim vs. the World — (rewatch) ★★★★★
  • Wake Up Dead Man — ★★★★★
  • Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban — (rewatch) (no rating)
  • Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire — (rewatch) (no rating)
  • Rise of the Guardians — (no rating)
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl — (rewatch) (no rating)

Have I mentioned that I love Letterboxd? You can follow me there.

books

This month, I finished 2 books:

Put this down the first time around due to the parts in dialect. Still didn’t really appreciate the dialect the second time around, but could get behind the stakes a bit more. Lacking the traditional Banks depth, but still fun.

I now have only one* Iain Banks book left to read!

I’m currently reading Jack D. Schwager’s Hedge Fund Market Wizards.

failbetter

This month, failbetter published:

stats

This month:

  • I typed 768,300 keys and clicked 111,256 times.
  • I listened to 975 songs.