Our variegated ficus plant will shirk off a round of leaves at various points in the year, often preceding a growth spurt. At first this alarmed me, and I wondered at what sort of atmospheric change I had instigated to result in that flush of fallen leaves. (Ficus are notoriously abhorrent of the slightest change in situation, but will usually come around if given time to acclimate, and if the change in atmosphere still provides them with bright indirect light and decent humidity.) Immediately after it shed that first showering of leaves, fresh ones appeared – and ever since then I’ve understood and slowly learned to appreciate this cycle of life. 

Our plant usually goes through a few shifts in growth during the year, and the happiest one occurs right now, as the earliest signifier of longer daylight hours and the impending approach of spring. Another batch of new leaves is on the way, and more plentiful than the ones that have fallen. 

Our last recap came a day late, and this one follows suit, the way that New Year’s Day always follows Christmas. I’m fine with that, as the very last thing I need or want right now is a fucking recap, but before we belly-flop into the new year, let’s take one last look at the final week of 2023… 

It began sadly with the loss of my Dad’s older brother, capping off a relatively awful year of deaths. 

A Christmas moon provided fitting beauty for Christmas Day. 

At the same time, the sun was setting on our first Christmas without Dad. 

A smorgasbord of all teasing, no pleasing.

This vintage photo always tickles me, mostly because I’m still itching for a proper romper. 

Finding something amid the funk.

I finally got around to giving a quick run-down of this year’s Boston Children’s Holiday Hour, which is in need of revamp if only for the fact that no one is a child anymore. 

The Dazzlers of the Day who closed out the year were Emerson Collins, Josh Hutcherson, Ncuti Gatwa, JC Chasez and Lenny Kravitz.

The year ended with this single Year-in-Review post because 2023 needs to be left behind and forgotten as soon as possible. 

As a sign of hope, these roses were a gift from Andy to cheer me up. I like entering the year on that note. 

There are days when it feels easier to hide. There are days when staying in bed feels like the safest and surest way of staying alive. And there are days when all the pampering or self-preservation or coping techniques don’t make the slightest damn difference in the search for motivation. 

Despite my assumed-penchant for an easy life, the truth remains that I don’t shy away from a challenge, and if I set my mind to doing something it overwhelmingly gets done. These days, the challenge can be simply making it through a morning, and I’m finding it more difficult to get going. I notice myself simply lying down on the couch or bed, or slouching into a chair, content to be lazy for this stretch of winter, content to be still. That’s ok for a moment, especially after the last year – and really, it could be said for any year. A year in the life of anyone is an accomplishment for merely surviving. No matter how lucky or unlucky you may feel, no matter how you might compare yourself to others, a year is a magnificent feat in and of itself. We should all be taking a congratulatory lap around whatever course we can get ourselves around. 

So it is that I look ahead to the next year, with the wrinkles of wisdom and the gray hair of survival, with all the mistakes and mis-steps, and all the wondrous  times when family and friends and fortune smiled upon me in spite of my foibles. 

The year begins in the quiet fashion of this post, but I also want to include a little blossom of hope. The last time I was in Boston I walked through the Public Garden, a favorite haunt for so many vaunted reasons, and I found a few early cherry blossoms bravely defying the season and timeframe of Mother Nature. Climate change and global warming aside, it was a reminder that somewhere spring was still happening, even if it was just in my heart and head. It was also a reminder that spring would come again, even if we weren’t all here to witness it. And if spring can remain within us in a state of hope, then it never really went anywhere. That makes for a happy mindset. 

Too many of us, myself most of all, put too much faith in the start of a new year acting as a springboard to the start of a new life. The actual truth of the matter is that one more day has come and gone – a single day. Taken collectively with the other days of the year, perhaps it is the mark of something, but only a mark, not indicative of anything meaningful unless we have done something with that time. And so we start this day feeling let down, perhaps, because there isn’t the spark we thought we might feel. In many ways, it’s the let-down of being an adult, and having been around the sun enough times to know that one date isn’t going to make a damn difference. 

That doesn’t make for a great beginning, certainly not the flashy and trashy shit I often like to post to kick off a new year. My heart just isn’t in it right now, and so I step away from bringing the small world that visits here down as well, offering instead a few New Year links from the past. Indulging in nostalgia is only harmful if we stay here. For one day, it’s all right. 

New Year’s Day 2013 – It seems my heart wasn’t in it ten years ago either. There is something reassuring about that. 

New Year’s Day 2014 – A new year came with a new renovation, and it was all a nightmare.

New Year’s Day 2015 – A basket of bounty began this fortuitous year. 

New Year’s Day 2016 – The year that began with a slice of lavender cake, as every year should. 

New Year’s Day 2017 – Well, looking back it seems for many of these previous years, I did start out in quiet terms, in quiet posts. (And the odd naked butt shot for Baby New Year and what-not.)

New Year’s Day 2018 – And of course just as I was settling into the idea of quiet openers – BAM! – the unquiet post arrives. 

New Year’s Day 2019 – Another year, another bang! 

New Year’s Day 2020 – Back to the calm and contemplative start to a year. 

New Year’s Day 2021 – Frosty beginnings make way for gray days. And pretty roses. 

New Year’s Day 2022 – It was entitled ‘Spank My New Year’s Ass, Baby’ but that may have been misleading. 

New Year’s Day 2023 – Last year began like 1-23. It ended like 12-31-23.

There is sometimes a celebratory aspect to the year in review posts that come as we complete a calendar year, but this time there’s not all that much to celebrate. Making it through another year is certainly a feat unto itself, so perhaps we take our celebration in that, and the fact that it’s come to a brutal end. Rather than break this up into two posts, I’m puking it all up here, with the main highlights, because the less said about this year, the better. Here’s to a happier 2024…

January 2023:

The year began with a hint at the 20th anniversary celebrations that ALANILAGAN.com would be marking. Yes, this completes the second decade of this website, which is nothing short of miraculous. A lot has changed since then. The eyes of a superstar still hit like heat.

Kiss my bitter peach/naked ass. 

Vamping for Plan B with the Ilagan twins. 

The lashes of Jaxon Layne.

I am AI – always have been, always will be.

A Madonna Celebration is announced…

Tea & sustenance.

Feeling all the years.

Spilling the tea since 2003, we began commemorating the 20th anniversary of this site. 

Look what they made me do (after escorting me out of the Amsterdam Mall)!

That lavender haze.

February 2023:

Putting the kettle on for a cup of hot tea.

Finding mindfulness in a dish rag.

Making love out of nothing at all. (Along with the acoustic version for a reprise.)

Jaxon and Lolo.

Coaxing a mystery orchid back into bloom.

A silver anniversary for Madonna’s best album (to date). 

Preparing for a two-decade salute.

The cutest Godchild ever.

Boston love has been rampant on this blog.

March 2023:

20 begins officially.

Naked titillation.

Diary of a half-life.

Fancy cup of tea.

Should I bend over?

Season of the prayer.

Still hanging out in my underwear for all the word to see.

I wanted his sex.

Touch me now.

Tomorrow…

The twins turned into teenagers. In honor of that, a letter to Noah and a letter to Emi.

April 2023:

My shameful egg ignorance.

Family fun spanning the generations.

Death by a thousand cuts.

A double-decade of revelations, and an ass shot.

The madness of making an oboe reed.

Pink or green: which witch are you?

Forget surreal, social media sucks.

A naked bubble tea journey – LIVE!

Total eclipse of the heart.

The second man I ever kissed.

May 2023:

Loves of my life.

Our 13th wedding anniversary.

It’s never too soon to plan for retirement. No, seriously, I mean it.

Shirtless jogging scene.

A letter to my Godson.

Pampering peonies.

June 2023:

We started summer a little early in a vain attempt to stave off the sadness that was lying in wait. It almost worked.

An unforgettable christening, the only kind that would be fitting for a Godson of mine.

Taylor Swift gave us the summer anthem. 

Ogunquit nostalgia. 

Returning to Ogunquit provided a welcome respite, rain and all.

The unwinding. 

The vulgar jockstrap post before taking off all my clothes.

The shy exhibitionist, part one.  //  The shy exhibitionist, part two.

A post for my Dad, even if he couldn’t read it.

Alive on the verge of summer, which suddenly started with skinny dipping.

Old-school summer playlist.

Taking the rain.

Top-twenty Madonna timelines.

July 2023:

Tomorrow, again. And then a more popular song. And then a celebration postponed.

Words and notes in an effort to touch the hand of God.

A letter to my Godson on his first birthday.

Our real anniversary.

Meeting old friends in the city that never sleeps made for one final flourish of fun before the summer took its dark turn.

August 2023:

In memory of my Dad.

August was spent less in a haze and more in a keen awareness of what I was feeling, from grieving to driving to breathing to walking – all in a hushed and still stance. 

The days moved, the summer inched ahead, and throughout it all there was fluttering, visiting, and promising.

Unable to avoid the crowd of a funeral, I finally caught COVID for the first time, followed closely by Andy. It was the cherry on a summer sundae.

Learning to bee.

Fading to black on a rainy 48th birthday.

A summer song for swimming even if I wasn’t quite ready.

Full mooning and naked dreaming.

Finally, August departed.

September 2023:

A Boston visit by Dad.

A weekend in Boston with the twins provided a chance to set the scene for fall.

More lessons from Dad.

All these little deaths and a beloved visitor at 4:44 AM.

A fall season begins with a newly-found song. (And an encore.)

A not-quite-definitive post of what this website has become over twenty years.  

October 2023:

This year’s BroSox Adventure with Skip had all the ingredients and mains of a complete and total disaster. It even ended on a Sunday with a rain-out, and somehow it became one of my favorite BroSox Adventures. 

Hang on little tomato.

Searching for my Dad and not finding him… then realizing he was never really gone.

Stepping back into the pool, slowly, timidly… and letting the water work its healing magic.

Mom rejoined us for a fall trip to Ogunquit. 

A comedy of holiday errors with the bestie.

The best break-up I’ve ever had (or, four years of not drinking). 

Are we out of the woods?

A birthday dinner for Andy.

Previewing the big parade.

November 2023:

Welcome to the duck parade.

I may have married my childhood crush.

Healing times with a dear friend.

A Friendsgiving event in Boston found us re-evaluating and re-uniting after a period of hurt and misunderstanding, which is the best way to deal with shared grief. A few pockets of peace and calm saw us through a weekend of reunion, and the wild nights we have now are blessedly removed from what we once knew. A Sunday stroll paved the way for the holidays. 

There was blood on the barber shop floor.

Gathering to find gratitude.

A reunion with our favorite babysitter (who still remembers us as the worst kids she ever babysat). Also, guilty.

Our new holiday hearth.

December 2023:

Our Holiday Stroll tradition found us going back to basics, which was our way of avoiding any real drama. 

It was about time for this year’s Holiday Card. Time, time, time… see what’s become of me.

My dickie confession.

How a sex club helped me land my first office job, which is the start of a story that goes back a quarter of a century. It marked a pivotal part in my life, and I had the fortune of meeting a few pivotal people – but not as pivotal as these lovely ladies.

This year’s Holiday Stroll was a return to the simple things that Kira and I do best.

Rainbows landing in Albany.

Winter whispers …

A Children’s Holiday Hour without any real children.

Christmas brotherhood.

A cemetery visit for Christmas.

A Christmas moon.

The funk of these last few days of Mercury in retrograde has put a damper on this tail-end of 2023, and almost everyone I know just wants this wretched year to end so we can start again in 2024. I too would like that, though I don’t want to rush into anything. It can always be worse, and despite the sadness and pain that 2023 brought, there was goodness and beauty and fun along the way. Don’t miss too much of life for mourning, I remind myself – the dead wouldn’t want it that way. 

And so we stumble along, limping through these final days of December while Mercury’s apparent motion wreaks its customary havoc, while we balance the sorrow of the previous year with all its wonderful moments of healing and solace. 

These flowers were seen on our Holiday Stroll, and they set the scene for the next blog post, which is a quick recap of this year’s Boston Children’s Holiday Hour, in which no one was a child anymore…