Twenty-twenty-five

A database maintenance error email recently reminded me that this website exists. I shut down all my twitter accounts a while ago, the last instance of a platform I’d been actively using for a long time and that had led to some really good and fun things in my life (people! Jobs! Fun!). Over the last weeks, despite my QUALMS with it, I started using Instagram more again (if you want to check it out, hi, here it is) and am dabbling a bit with Bluesky. It doesn’t feel like there are many great places on the web anymore to share things and, most of all, stay in touch with people. Or, you know, I’m just getting old. (Or, to quote New Girl‘s Nick Miller, “I’m finally ageing into my personality.”)

So, in good old tradition (2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018; I missed 2019, 2020, 2021, nothing for 2022, 2023, 2024): here goes.—

The months

January – December

January & February: I spend a lot of time at unpleasant appointments and what feels like the rest of the time traveling there and back. My rent increases. I sew a blazer and go to a protest. Nothing much happens, but not in a great way. It snows and we go sledding one afternoon. The phone holder on my electric scooter malfunctions, my phone drops out while I’m driving through a narrowed lane and I am able just stop quickly enough to watch and hear it get run over by a truck. I sew a sweater. I make a promise to myself to start taking myself more seriously as an artist, finally (which really means, seriously at all), and spend time this year making more art, working on my technique, and, hopefully, getting better at it. This will become one of the most important events this year.

March: I visit Pergamon Museum before they close up for a few years for construction. Start a crafting meetup. Make loads of focaccia. I negotiate a new phone contract. Spend a few days in Rome. Start painting pleinair again, first with watercolors, later with oils.

April:

May: Start the month in the park. I start work on one of my best paintings to date. A ceiling window flies off during a storm and to this day, no one knows why or how; fortunately no one is hurt. I clean out my space a bit and donate three large boxes of books. Berry crumble season. I bake a bad bread.

June. Lots of work.

July. Cherries. Impromptu barbecue in the kitchen. I sort-of unplanned visit my first festival and have a few glorious days. I discover my deep love for apple fritters.

August. My father dies, very (very, very) unexpectedly. I spend a lot of time traveling to spend a lot of time with family. I pick the blackberries and raspberries so they don’t go bad. The Scooter concert that we’d long ago bought tickets for feels like the perfect antidote.

September. I travel to Greece for the first time to get some distance, sunshine, sea, and eat gigantes daily. And see cats.

October: I sew two faux fur coats. The leaves are gone. I see Asaf Avidan live and it’s just so good. One of the best skies of the year.

November: I take a portrait drawing class and a self-portrait drawing class and a glass working class. Oh, and a sewing pattern drafting class for a “little black dress.”

December: I take part in a choir project, we rehearse for four days and perform at the Berlin philharmonic with 300 singers, a band, and 1,300 people in the audience; so glad I did this. I take a pottery workshop. The dishwasher breaks. My drawing class draws at the museum, and I paint in the park. I go to Hamburg to be on a train and see art.

2025 in numbers

(I still like numbers)

Traveled to Rome, London, my hometown in the South of Germany, Greece;

favorite moments spent with: T. (always and at Metro), walks with J., tacos and horchata with J. (different J.), coffee with M., ditching the event to sit at the river with D.

spoke at one tech conference and got to keynote another,

wrote 5 articles for work and 20 or so for a secret blog (not like I needed another),

hosted 10 sessions of my crafting meetup “Which Craft”, 1 meetup for senior engineering managers who are members of underrepresented groups; 9 live podcasts for O’Reilly and 8 episodes of my own podcast, Leadership Confidential,

posted no more tweets but some stuff to Instagram,

took 9,304 photos (as of Dec 16, when I started writing this; presumably, the final number will be a few more),

read 66 books, nothing anymore in Pocket (R.I.P.). My favorite books this year:

Bought lots of art supplies (mostly paint and fabric), community college classes, a mattress topper, some plants, daylight lamps from an office shutdown

Saw live:

  • Asaf Avidan with T. (omg SO GOOD),
  • The Offspring with J. (so fun!),
  • Scooter with J. (what a party!),
  • Auri with T. (cute),
  • Mulatu Astatke with T. (what a joy!),
  • Deutsches Symphonie Orchester with Carolina Eyck on the Theremin (wow!), also with T.
  • Went to my first festival! Finally! And it was INCREDIBLE. Bought tickets for 2026 on the morning of day two, heh.

I also performed as a choir singer for the first time in 20-ish years and at Berlin Philharmonic nonetheless! Such a beautiful experience.

Work: Kept running my business

Coffee: Not much anymore, took up drinking black tea recently because I’d bought it for my friend who didn’t end up drinking it. Otherwise, I’m on a “cherry and banana”-tea kick (it’s way better than it sounds).

Listened to 3,145 songs by 1,045 artists. (That’s a steep drop from previous years, mostly the result of listening to more audio books, podcasts, or just nothing for a lot of the time.)

Favorite things I saw: At least 5 double rainbows. My friends’ kittens. A letter I had hoped and waited for. A forgotten (but still whole!) banana in my purse and a negroni sbagliato on the table after two long conference days. A tree, at night, lit up in beautiful colors. New leaves on the strelitzia. The rainbow-colored reflections of my holographic lampshade on the wall. M., napping. T., always.

TV shows this year, my absolute favorites:

  • Resident Alien
  • Murderbot
  • Con Man
  • Etoile
  • Deli Boys
  • Somebody, somewhere
  • Person of Interest (first time!)
  • New Girl (again, for the 675th time)
  • People of Earth
  • Paradise
  • Abbott Elementary
  • Slow Horses

Also watched some of:

  • Population: 11
  • Down Cemetery Road
  • Culinary Class Wars
  • Elsbeth
  • Tracker
  • Acapulco
  • Ludwig
  • The Pitt
  • North of North
  • The Franchise
  • The Tiny Chef Show
  • The Great Pottery Throw Down
  • The Great British Sewing Bee
  • The Great British Bake Off
  • A Man on the Inside
  • Dept. Q
  • Started but dropped out: All Creatures Great And Small; Loot; Palm Royale; The Paper; The Chair Company; The Studio; Nobody Wants This

Ate: Lots of homemade pizza. Probably not enough protein. Definitely not enough ice cream.

  • Berry crumbles
  • Focaccia, savory and with cinnamon
  • Sally’s cinnamon rolls
  • Pizza: Kenji’s sicilian pizza, and this redditor’s recipe
  • Zucchini polenta bake, all summer
  • Apple donuts
  • Turkish Lentil Soup
  • Gigantest

Favourite podcasts:

  • What Went Wrong; went through the entire back catalogue
  • Switched on Pop
  • Daniel and Kelly’s extraordinary universe
  • Critics at large
  • Culture Study Podcast
  • Decoder Ring
  • Fresh Air
  • The Gray Area
  • Handsome
  • Hyperfixed
  • If Books Could Kill
  • Once we were spacemen
  • Search Engine
  • Today, Explained

Music! The 11 songs I listened to the most:

  • Pedro – Jaxomy – 55x
  • Welcome to the 90’s – Time Modem – 50x
  • Gratitude – VNV Nation – 28x
  • We No Speak Americano – Yolanda Be Cool – 22x
  • Korobeinki – Eisenfunk – 21x
  • You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid – The Offspring – 21x
  • Get Me Away from Here, I’m Dying – Belle and Sebastian – 20x
  • Cathedral – DJ Kuba – 19x
  • The Kids Aren’t Alright – The Offspring – 19x
  • Tango – Emrod – 18x
  • Comet – DJ Nobu – 16x
  • Barefoot Adventures – Adriel Fair – 15x
  • Haunted – Asaf Avidan – 15x

2026

I just finalized my 2025 family portrait, a series I started in 2021.

This time, I couldn’t quite get to the cohesive photo series that I’d hoped for, and in the end, I think that’s more reflective of this year than anything else.
The first six photos are part of a larger body of work I’ve been creating with the working title “I thought about a new destination.” For this instance, I lay down on pillows on the floor because they were, inevitably, such a big part of this year’s shape. But I realised as I went that they weren’t right for what I was really going for here and for where things are at. So I removed the pillows and brought all the light and reflective surfaces I could find and all the weird body shapes I make find into it (and took a lightly bruised sacrum out of it). In the last photo, I wear a long black dress that I wore for four big moments this year: Hosting a gathering, burying my father, disembarking a ferry in Greece, and looking hot at a dinner.

None of it fits together, and yet, here I find myself. And here you find yourself. And maybe, somewhere, we will find each other soon.

Happy 2026.

By L.

I walk fast.

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