{"id":35036,"date":"2026-01-01T16:59:53","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T21:59:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=35036"},"modified":"2026-01-01T18:45:58","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T23:45:58","slug":"a-cold-start-to-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=35036","title":{"rendered":"A Cold Start to the Year"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I didn’t make it to midnight to see the stake put through 2025’s cold, black heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I fell asleep about 9, while listening to Hot Jazz New Year’s Eve<\/a> on WAMU, and woke at 11 to Fred Astaire singing “They Can’t Take That Away From Me<\/a>.” I turned it off, turned off the lights, and called it a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

There were snow squalls overnight, and I woke to some light snow. Some of it melted in the sun, but it’s bitterly cold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"My<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I went out to the store in the afternoon, and the roads were fine, if covered in salt and chemicals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Swampy. My word for 2026 is “swampy.”<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Screenshot<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

After two<\/i> job rejections today, perhaps my 2026 will end up with me living in a van down by the river… err, swamp<\/i>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

This year, I intend to read James Joyce’s Ulysses<\/i>. There’s a Reddit group<\/a> this year tackling it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I intend to finish writing the book I started in November, which fell by the wayside as my dad was hospitalized (twice) and my mom died<\/a>. I didn’t have the mental space to carry on from the twenty pages I wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I intend to find a job. Unemployment sucks. I said to my mom, in one of our last conversations, maybe the last, that “something will shake off the tree,” but I only have a pile of rejections to show for my efforts. The market for marketing and comms professionals sucks<\/i>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n
\n
\"Skeet<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I didn’t make it to midnight to see the stake put through 2025’s cold, black heart. I fell asleep about 9, while listening to Hot Jazz New Year’s Eve on WAMU, and woke at 11 to Fred Astaire singing “They Can’t Take That Away From Me.” I turned it off, turned off the lights, andContinue reading “A Cold Start to the Year”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[5372,204,5371,3921,530,4121,363],"class_list":["post-35036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","tag-fred-astaire","tag-james-joyce","tag-merriam-webster","tag-pennsylvania","tag-snow","tag-ulysses","tag-weather","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35036\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}