Michael Z's November Newsletter
One month left of 2024...
We got through November! One month left of the year.
I’m thinking about ways to make the winter feel more structured and joyful and cozy, rather than just waiting out the cold. There’s a real absence of holidays in the winter. I have some ideas:
Monthly house party January-March
Attend any art events I see pop up!
Plan special cozy meals to look forward to
Do you have any things you do that help structure time and bring joy in the winter? I’d love to hear about them!
I’ve been sick for the last week, which is pretty rare for me, and so I’ve been missing my friends, and bummed that I missed a few art markets this past weekend. I think that’s really emphasized my desire to make the winter feel more full of social energy and joy. I don’t want to be curled up under a blanket the whole time.
Reading
I’m still reading Anna Karenina. 60% through, baby.
I read Akwaeke Emezi’s romance novel called You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty. [Some vague spoilers below]
Emezi is one of my favorite authors. Usually their work is pretty sad, but also very heartfelt and beautiful and saying something that feels like it fills the cracks inside of a person and shows you what those places feel like. I don’t know if that makes sense, actually. I didn’t trust that even a romance wouldn’t be sad, and I was right! But as usual it was very worth it, and it does fulfill the genre promise of things being good in the end. And no one dies! Uh, during the present time of the novel, at least. It maybe has a lot to do with grief…
I also finished My Sister, the Serial Killer, by Oyinkan Braithwaite. I did eventually understand why people said it was funny, though I wouldn’t call it a fun, funny ride, personally. It was good though—I recommend it if the premise seems interesting to you! It’s good writing and it was definitely gripping—I read it in a few days.
Politics and Society
As a lot of us are, I’m feeling the strain of how the election went and what it means. It feels impossible to summarize the month without talking about the election, and how it somehow disappointed me in the details, even though I knew the overall outcome was as least as likely as not.
I’ve slid back onto Facebook since then, after probably a couple of years of slowly extracting myself from it. Facebook used to make me feel the worst of any of my social media feeds; honestly because it was mostly depressed friends posting depressing memes. When I was most active on Facebook I was also depressed posting depressing angry memes. Over the last few years, I keep wanting to tell people that things about the world can feel less hopeless when you’re less personally hopeless.
I guess something about us all feeling so hopeless, even if for just a moment, made it seem worth it to look; like I wouldn’t feel so at odds with what I found, and that I wanted to look at my acquaintances and friends all the time—like I needed to reassure myself they’re there. It also felt like I’d see just a few emotions, and so the whiplash of scrolling wouldn’t be so present.
My feed actually hasn’t been depressing. I think a lot of people I know have moved on from just memes, and somewhere between the site peppering in a million group posts and what I kept closing the tab on, I have still mostly seen groups that don’t make me upset, and enough of people I know to feel positive. It’s probably one of the better social media feeds I have right now.
Initially I expected a wave of “well what did you expect” kind of harsh rejection of anyone’s feelings, but I didn’t see that happen at all. I think even those of us who thought we were ready to be disappointed were bowled over by how clear a signal our people were sending that they didn’t care about us or anyone not like them.
That’s a big shift in me since 2016, or probably even 2021. For a very long time I wanted to stop being American. My reaction to Trump’s presidency in 2016 was “I want to get out of here.” I hated my country and felt like it was just a collection of people in a cursed culture. I longed to belong to somewhere else, but also didn’t feel entitled to belong anywhere else, even the places my family is from.
I don’t feel that way now. I’m in a safer place now, and so I am facing that Americans are my people. It doesn’t feel like America is happening to me anymore. It feels like I am American and I have a place here, even if others seem not to agree.
I feel disappointed that people could be so selfish, and it makes me want to yell at them, not just about any of their particular biases, but just “wow are you sure you want to be this selfish? You should know better.” It’s more “you’re an adult acting like you just got here” than “I want you to understand me” right now.
The more I start to grasp that a community is just the people where you are, the people who choose to engage with each other in various ways, the less I feel like begging people to approve of me, or chastise them into it. They should care about me because I’m here, and I should care about them because they’re here. It’s a real kindergarten level of skill, and I think they should be embarrassed.
That’s a really different place to be in. I am really stressed and afraid, but I’m also aware that fearing for my personal safety is probably not realistic and I should focus on other people if I’m going to focus on this. Except for my disappointment, which is personal. I am disappointed in Americans, and it feels both relieving and devastating. A relief to choose to belong here. Devastation that so many people can be so hateful.
I know the margin shrank as votes were counted; I know a whole lot of people didn’t vote, and that’s reassuring. But damn. It’s like being disappointed by a family member who’s shown you that you can’t trust them before—it’s not a surprise, but it also really is.
In the next few days after the election, a lot of the posts I saw were angry kind of “gear up to fight” posts, which honestly mostly annoyed me; it felt disingenuous for people to claim that now, despite how we’ve been here before and they’ve said it before, they’re supposedly going to learn the possibly least useful skills in reaction to their anger. I know that’s harsh—it’s not like my reactions to things are practical all the time. I just didn’t feel connected when I read those.
Since then, I have seen more of what feels very hopeful to me. I have seen a lot of posts about how to get involved with helping other people, with connecting with other people; how to show up for fun and work in communities.
For probably a decade I’ve felt like the internet has gone in and out of telling me it’s crunch time on Fighting, but this time I think a lot of people have gotten tired of pretending we’re going to fight, and want to do something else.
I feel so silly and so American to have wondered so intensely about what a community even is.
I read an article today about a “cohousing community” (quotes because that is the name of the thing) and how these parents living in it feel so relieved to have people around who can watch their kids for a sec, and kids that their kids can play with, etc. Apparently this specific movement started in the ‘80s. It was kind of painful to read because that is KNOWING YOUR NEIGHBORS and just everyone agreeing they want that.
I want it to not be weird to talk to your neighbors!
When my partner and I moved here, I resolved to answer the door any time someone knocked. We might get people who are trying to sell something (and we did, just once) but one of those knocks could be a neighbor.
One time it was, and he needed help! One of my neighbors was having a family emergency, and needed someone to watch their dog for a bit. Because of that, I know his name and his family’s names and have his phone number, which I can’t say for any of the other neighbors I’ve had in my entire adult life.
Over the last year I’ve been trying to use online, which I’m comfortable with and used to, to find in-person events, and that’s made my life better. I’ve been aware that making friends doesn’t have to be exhausting, and knowing people doesn’t have to be deep. I’m looking forward to doing better at that this year. Not because it’s gonna get worse politically, but because I just need to be know more strangers to feel whole as a person.
Odds and Ends
Crafting!
A friend invited me to a crafting night a few weeks ago, and I have been more on my jewelry making since then! I learned that having a group crafting time really helps me focus (picking one craft). Making a pair of earrings doesn’t take especially long, so it’s great to feel satisfied that I actually finished a whole object in one evening. I made these:
I’m proud of them!
I also made very fun pasta earrings, which I’ll share next time since I already lost them in my house.
Style!
I recently downloaded an app called Indyx, which I am enjoying! I took photos of various pieces of clothing, and I can match them as outfits.
I kind of changed the trajectory of my transition in 2020. I generally quit “women’s” clothes for the first time. I’ve been out since the early 2010’s, but the idea of having to dress like A Guy, among other things, sounded kind of aesthetically devastating, so I just didn’t. Before my medical transition, that meant that no one was using the right pronouns for me in public, which I could live with at the time. For many years I identified as non-binary, even though that word never really fit—I think that’s true for a lot of us; it was meant to be a category but it became the identity word too?
I’ve always identified best with “genderqueer” and that is the only word that I’ve used that transcends any other thing going on with my gender or presentation.
Around 2020 I tried out looking like A Guy and it has been alright. It was depressing in terms of personal style, but 2020 was a great time for that, because I was in my house. It turned out that actually the clothes I’d been wearing were fun but giving me more dysphoria over time. I also wanted to try out being comprehensible to all cis people, and see if I could achieve “passing,” partly because it felt like it would give me some security to know I’d likely be safe if I went to less safe places for trans people.
It did work. I think mostly people don’t assume I’m trans. I’ve had people in my personal life at this point who find out I’m trans because I or someone else mentioned it casually. That’s extremely new.
In doing that, I realized that I like that the complexities of my gender are private to me now. I need my friends and partner to understand my gender, but I kind of don’t need other people to. Man works for that, for now. It feels true, if incomplete. I feel very lucky I can have that security. For a lot of years I had a lot of attention on me, not just because I was visibly trans, but because of the choices I made—I loved how I looked! But now I am grateful for some quiet.
I would really be happy to love how I look again, without the compromise. After four entire years of sticking to it, I feel like I’m just starting to approach a style as fun as before I shifted in this direction.
I have been having a lot of fun making outfits in that little app—it has given me a better sense of options than just staring at my piles or hangers full of random clothing items.
I’m hoping by the end of 2025 I will look as interesting as I once did. I’ve been adding back in makeup, and I like to create and wear jewelry. It would also be amazing to actually commit to learning how to sew better, to create some genderless, just-Michael clothing pieces that look weird and fun.
Maybe some year I’ll be goth again??
If you have any recommendations for men’s clothes that have weird shapes, fun cuts and patterns, please let me know! I’d be so grateful!
Energy update?
My attempt to just do things and not worry so much about running out of energy feels like it didn’t work very well. I have been really exhausted, but I’m not sure why. I think it’s possible that leaving my job put me on a quick hypomania-depression cycle and I ended up back at tired. I’m going to keep trying, though. Even if I can’t do as much as I’d like, I do still want to be less fearful about it.
I have also been sick, so maybe the energy will come back, as it does.
Trying not to worry so much definitely took a hit this month! It’s still my largest goal for 2025…so…wish me luck on that?
If you remember that time I was taking advice on that from a random reddit comment? I might go back to that. Drinking a shit ton of water really helped! I recommend it.
Rabbits
The boys are doing well! They’re shedding in incomprehensible quantities. I’m so glad we got that pet vacuum, because brushing their fur has never worked so well.
Last year we struggled with temperature a bit, because we’d turn it up to warm ourselves and then down to cool the rabbits. This year we’re committing to 55-60 degrees and leaving it alone. I hope that leads to fewer coat turnovers!
I haven’t ever looked into it, but it’s made me wonder if rabbits don’t have a summer and winter coat, but have a lot of coats? Or, maybe just Tilly does.
Can you believe that a year ago they stayed several feet away from each other at all times? They are so close now!
Thank you for reading!!
I’m so grateful you like to read my newsletter! Please share with me your winter joys & plans, about your pets, your thoughts on this newsletter, or whatever else you’d like to share in the comments, or via email. If you received this as an email, you can just hit reply. If you’re viewing on the web, you can email me at michaelzzaki.writes@gmail.com.
Have a lovely December!!