2025
Needful Things 2025 (A Best-of List)
categories: needful things
This year, I worked on challenging the monkey’s face. I did good. I lost 30 lbs. I did not do this with drugs, although I kinda wish I had the option, because I am sure it would have been less agonizing. I lowered my cholesterol, kept myself off blood pressure medication, and can actually squat again. This is very big, as I haven’t really been able to squat in a decade. I became someone who fills their day with movement. I began incorporating “mobility exercises.” I ate chia pudding. It felt like a gullet full of tadoles. Still, I think I can do it again. Amazingly, I became, without even trying, someone who loves an evening bath. Maybe related to the tadpoles? Unclear.
I wrote a book this year. I became a (print!) magazine columnist! I stopped using TikTok altogether. I stopped ordering out for dinner so often. Seriously, we have only ordered out twice this year, or at most three times, and once was when I was sick, so I am not even sure that counts. I cook dinner every night, whether I want to or not. A lot of this involves having made a bunch of beans, or soup, or curries, or some such earlier in the week, so the work was already done for me…but you know, sometimes it’s not even about the work, right? Sometimes you just don’t want beans or curries or soup or what you already have on hand. I ate the beans anyway.
And somewhere between the beans and the baths and books (I only wrote one, but I read 150 of them!) I also acquired things. And rediscovered some things! This is my annual accounting of those objects: practical things that became rituals, frivolous things that became essential, all the small, material anchors of another trip around the sun with me and my magpie brain, forever seeking the next perfect weird thing.
WEARABLE DELIGHTS
This year’s clothing acquisitions fall into two distinct categories: comfort and declaration. Soft pants for cooking dinner and lounging at home; t-shirts and sweaters that announce exactly where my interests lie. There’s no middle ground here, no versatile pieces that could go either way. I’m either prioritizing the body I’m actively maintaining or wearing my obsessions literally on my sleeve. The Beginning of the End sweater gets maybe two weeks of wearable weather in Florida, but I bought it anyway because sometimes a thing is too perfect to be practical about.
Old Navy x Anna Sui sweatshirt
Universal Standard Lounge pants
Toad & Co. wide legged hemp pant
Beginning of the End sweater from Altar + Orb
Night of the Living Dead t-shirt
BAUBLES & TALISMANS
Three pendants acquired within months of each other, all from small makers whose work leans toward the symbolic and strange. A mandrake root, the eyes of a martyred saint, Hermes’ staff – symbols of knowledge, perception, and protection. I layer them together or wear them singly depending on mood and neckline. They’re talismans in the most practical sense: I’m a writer who traffics in the weird and macabre, so I might as well have some backup from the symbolic realm.
Mandrake charm from Troll Cunning Forge
Eyes of St. Lucia pendant from Flannery Grace
Staff of Hermes pendant from bloodmilk
WORKSPACE IMPROVEMENTS
My desk has always been a place I want to sit because I’ve made it that way. This year’s additions include scented highlighters for marginalia, the loveliest smoothest writing pens, and some Liberty print journals for perfume notes, book quotes, and writing ideas. The Mariage Frères incense is a rediscovery from years ago; the lotus burner is new, a gift. Simple upgrades for reading and writing, nothing fancy. (Except also some very fancy antique and candles!)
Additional treasures from Roses & Rue
PROVISIONS & PANTRY MAGIC
Remember being 20 and running out of things, not knowing if you could afford more? A four-pack of toilet paper, a bag of rice, whatever small necessity you’d miscalculated? This year I leaned into the unglamorous pleasure of abundance: buying coffee and pumpkin seeds and chickpeas in bulk, stocking a case of frozen dumplings because they’re hard to find. It’s boring to be excited about having backup provisions in the cabinet, but the security matters. Also here: recipes I made repeatedly – practical weeknight solutions, pure indulgences, and little things that elevate an ordinary weekday afternoon.
Good Store Keats & Co coffee subscription
Spiced Chickpea Stew With Coconut and Turmeric
Gateau Breton With Apricot Filling
Sourdough discard crackers (perfected with a sprinkling of hemp hulls, pumpkin seeds, almond slivers, and a dusting of spicy citrus salt)
Spiced oatmeal molasses cookies
Secret chocolate stash replenishment from Bar & Cocoa (Wild gorse! Pho Spice! So many interesting flavors!)
…and having actual Icelanders from Iceland telling me that my Hjónabandssæla is absolute perfection. (Note, I added strawberry jam in addition to rhubarb most recently and it was even better!)
BEAUTY RITUALS
This is the year I became more embodied. I really tried hard to treat myself as a body that needs tending rather than just a vehicle for my brain. The evening baths turned into ritual. Extensive skincare for face, hands, body. No makeup though; that’s still a bridge too far, ha! I bought fewer perfumes this year but more intentionally: the most expensive bottle I’ve ever owned, a dupe of something almost equally unattainable (but which I would never purchase the original anyway) and something that dethroned my 20-year favorite despite having backup bottles in reserve. All deliberate choices, nothing impulsive or collected just to collect.
Paula’s Choice BHA Exfololiant
HaruHaru Wonder Black Bamboo Daily Smoothing Body Oil
Londontown Kur nail ridge filler (weird TikTok comments made me hyper self-conscious about my nails)
Londontown Kur gel genius top coat
Good night CBD beauty oil (this is from Japan and was much easier to get a year ago)
DIGITAL EPHEMERA
I stopped using TikTok this year and replaced it with slower, more deliberate content. Vinyl-only music mixes curated by someone with impeccable taste. Scalp-scratching ASMR when I needed to turn my brain off completely. Japanese lifestyle channels documenting quiet domesticity – one following a couple’s elaborate seasonal cooking, another tracking a solitary woman’s routines in what looks like a Tokyo apartment. All of these feel like watching someone else live intentionally, which somehow made my own attempts at intentional living feel less arduous.
My Analog Journal YouTube channel
SMALL WONDERS & PRECIOUS SPELLS
Small household objects that make daily life slightly better, that make breakfast feel special, that turn coming home into cozy magic, something that makes Florida summers bearable, nice even. Nothing here cost much, but each one solved a small problem or added pleasure to routine tasks.
This little heart-shaped wooden spoon
CELLULOID DREAMS
I save most of my horror viewing for October, which means belated discoveries from the 80s and 90s alongside newer finds. Body horror that’s both gross and audacious, atmospheric European folk tales, crime dramas about broken people investigating cold cases and small-town secrets, a new series about isolation versus hive mind. I wonder if there’s a through-line here – people trying to maintain their sense of self while investigating what corrupts or destroys others? Detectives working through their own trauma, unlikely partnerships under impossible circumstances, what it costs to remain human.
Pluribus (I have only watched 1.5 episodes of this so far!)
LITERARY OBSESSIONS
I read a lot of books this year. Southern Gothic swamps and sentient blobs. Medieval nuns and teenage witches. Academic satire and existential dread. Mysterious pregnancies and identity crises. Body horror and emotional isolation. Suburban ennui and uncanny transformations. Catastrophic friendships and women who are their own worst enemies. These are the ones I’m still thinking about (or more accurately, that I actually remember.)
The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet by John Green
Blob: A Love Story by Maggie Su
Immaculate Conception by Ling Ling Huang
Eat the Ones You Love Hardcover by Sarah Maria Griffin
Happy People Don’t Live Here by Amber Sparks
Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng by Kylie Lee Baker
One Yellow Eye by Leigh Radford
I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
Disorientation by Elaine Hsieh Chou
SONIC ACCOMPANIMENT
I don’t even need to mention Florence – she’s on everyone’s list. Mine too, of course. This year’s listening spanned Japanese folk inspired by bioluminescent creatures and carnivalesque electro-disco, Swedish goth songcraft with church organ and avant-garde saxophone, experimental ambient soundscapes and dungeon synth. Nothing here sounds like anything else here.
All the Pretty Flowers by THE DISCUSSION
My Home Is Not In This World by Natalie Bergman
It’s Always About Love by Ancient Infinity Orchestra
Expanding to One by Phi-Psonics
Eternal Redition by Vorstellung
MISCELLANY & RANDOM PARTICULARS
This section circles back to the challenge of the monkey’s face. Small changes that accumulated into something larger, new routines and rituals opening up in ways that used to feel impossible. Reaching toward others, realizing I need connection and community, even when it’s not my first instinct. Some of these are already habits, others are still just possibilities waiting for me to be ready. Change is hard, and my resistance to it makes it harder, but this year proved I’m capable.
-Instagram’s algorithm kept serving me fitness content I didn’t ask for (overstuffed gym guys, ab-obsessed former dancers, Ozempic-faced mommy bloggers turned supplement-shilling wellness coaches, I hate all of them with a passion) – so I cherry-picked exercises out of spite and built my own little programs, scattered throughout my day, building strength and moving my bod between other tasks. I especially like the idea of doing 5-10 squats every time you use the bathroom (I pee A LOT!)
-Tuesday and Friday nights alone with my thoughts, a small glass of whiskey, and Alice Coltrane while Ývan plays D&D with the lads.
-Weekends spent entirely in the kitchen – bread rising, vegetables chopped for the week ahead, jars of pickles lined up on the counter, nothing to do but cook and prep and let the hours disappear.
…alternately, Saturdays with friends, binging Eurovision and Andor with one, crafts and cocktails with another, or just catching up in each other’s company, letting the afternoon disappear.
-Monthly catch-up chats with a peer who writes in the same niche space. Someone who gets the weird obsessions, the struggle to articulate why a thing matters. If you know how hard IRL calls are for me, you get how big a step this is, and I am very glad and grateful for it.
-My sisters and I moved our Facebook chat to another platform, and suddenly we’re talking much more, daily check-ins, random thoughts, the kind of constant low-level contact that’s good for the heart.
…So what’s the thread connecting gnome doormats and afternoon tea and Swedish goth and sentient blobs and evening magnesium baths and an obsession with Japanese stationery? I guess it’s just…me?
What about you, then! What made your year? What are the weird little objects sitting on your desk or shelf right now that you reach for without thinking? The albums you kept coming back to, the recipes you made on repeat, the books you’re still thinking about? Tell me what you collected this year, what made ordinary days feel less ordinary, what small thing brought you unexpected pleasure when you needed it most.
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