#57: Year-end highlights
Say ta-ta to 2024 with a nice send off
Well, folks, it’s been another year of Snail Mail Sweethearts, and I am happy as ever to be here with you all.
I know the holiday season wrings some people out, but I love it. From Halloween on through to Rhody and I’s respective Aquarius birthdays, October to February is one Festapalooza of decorations, baked goods, gratitude, and gift giving. And while, yeah, I probably love it as much as I do because I don’t have children, so my holiday season largely involves wearing oversized sweaters while catching up on books and art projects and video games, it’s also a nice season because it’s a chance to be grateful for the year that’s passing and to scheme (dream) for the year ahead.
A childfree holiday season becomes a choice. If you don’t get into the spirit and decorate your house or make hot cocoa1 or build a gingerbread house, December will brush past you like any other month. Without the pressure of both society and children’s expectations, festivity becomes an active choice, not a passive thing done to us2.
And these past few years, I do choose to love it, and I go ham on decorations. But it wasn’t always the case. In the past, to say the holidays depressed me would be like saying the pressure of deep ocean feels like a hug. December to January I lurched along with a big fat coal for a heart; Christmas 2010 was the last day I saw my dad alive before he died suddenly a month later3. One year at a karaoke bar, as soon as the clock struck midnight, everyone all kissing and clinking plastic champagne flutes, I cried so hard my friend had to carry me to back to the car and take me home.
These past few years, though, I bust out my ugliest sweater on December 1st, and the only crying I do is during Rhody and I’s annual rewatch of White Christmas, ideally while munching on my mom’s retro-ass peanut sittin’ pretties recipe. And because of those painful holiday seasons before, I savor every damn bite.
All that to say… I hope your December is as authentically kind and gentle as mine. I am so very grateful to be here now. And today, I looked back at Snail Mail Sweethearts and rounded up some faves for you to revisit while you’re slacking off at work/waiting for your metro/avoiding doing laundry.
Enjoy!
📚 2024’s most popular nonfiction
By far, this one takes the cake as the most-viewed article in Snail Mail Sweethearts to date. I guess there’s something to be said for rediscovering a wild woman who’s been rewritten as a placid Good Girl for US English class!
#30: Wild Nights - Emily Dickinson and Sue Gilbert's decades-long love
The past 2+ months I’ve been off Instagram, and by and large, it’s ruled. But this week I discovered a drawback to the whole hiatus thing when I popped on via computer and found a missed DM from December announcing that my latest short story has been published in
🤠2024’s most popular fiction
I’m glad y’all loved this one; I loved this one. Cowboys and the American West are a frequently misrepresented time (lookin’ at you, John Wayne), so I’m glad y’all appreciated the tenderness of a lonely cowboy.
#50: The sky was Eddie-eye blue
After several months of traveling or hosting travelers, I have nothing on my docket til April. Not a bus ride, not a train ride, not a single human bean on my couch - and hot dang, am I excited. Don’t get me wrong; it’s a privilege to live somewhere only a train ride away from interesting places. And having a friend in my home makes me so happy, I’ll st…
And 2024’s It-may-not-have-won-a-popularity-contest-but-hot-dang-I-enjoyed-it series
Y’all - Fernando Pessoa, man with 73 alter egos he wrote as, once worked with founder of Satanism Aleister Crowley to help him fake his death to get back at an ex. To say it’s a bizarre story doesn’t even scratch the surface. A wild deep dive that I highly highly recommend!
The nonfiction:
#36: The man who helped the devil fake his own death
When Rhody and I fell in love, we started out as friends. I started to think maybe I’d fallen when I (a vegetarian by then) drove across town to help them make a beef pot pie. Reader, I took a bite of it and everything.
Aaaand I love the short fiction I wrote for it, too <3
The fiction:
#38: The Wickedest Man in the Train Car
Happy last day of April, mes amis! Despite the dreary grey, we’re somehow tiptoeing into the heart of spring, and smack dab into my favorite part of the month: fiction and art time!
I loved researching Fernando Pessoa two months in a row this past spring, but what about y’all? What was your favorite topic or short story this year?
Keep an eye out for voting time in just ten days! I’ve got some cool things up my sleeve for y’all :).
Til then - all my love and postcards mailed to Memory Lane,
Nikita, your Snail Mail Sweetheart
OK, OK, I make hot cocoa literally all year round, but you get my drift.
No shade on having kids, of course.
As always, a plug for International Suicide Hotlines. People love you and want to uplift you!