Posted by aloe on Feb 09, 2026
ah .. fuck. a new milestone (negative.) the latest letter yet. this is the kind of juncture where i would usually step back and reevaluate a project like this, because i so hate to cling to things that i'm ostensibly "doing" but not consistently delivering on. but something about this thing in particular has me feeling more stubborn than all that. maybe it's all the lovely feedback i've gotten from friends, or my intention from the outset to break some patterns around constantly abandoning and reinventing my online outlets and personae. but whatever the reason (my heart or my shoes,) it seems i've cobbled together enough shreds of motivation that we find ourselves here, now, together once again.
moon in review is the moonly newsletter from me, aloe. i send one out every first-quarter moon. it recounts the previous lunation, from one new moon to the next.
also before we get into the proper timeline — the week after the jan 18 new moon (which should have been the prime newsletter-writing time..) one of the water heater/boiler units in my house went out, and i went a little crazy trying to fix it. so that's kind of an excuse .. not that i needed one, or that this one is even particularly coherent anymore. but it's also a not-particularly-coherent segue to mentioning how cold and stormy this winter has been (lows in the single digits this week,) and post a rare direct fundraiser ask on behalf of our neighbors living in tents:
a group I'm a part of, Builders Club, has been making and distributing tent heaters throughout the winter. they can significantly warm a tent in less than half an hour. a set of 20 of the heater kits we distribute costs around $1,000, so we're asking for donations to help us continue to buy materials and fuel for the heaters. you'll see a quick turnaround on your donations: ss a group, we build and distribute at least once per week.
gofundme.com/f/tent-heaters-for-providence-encampments
and here's the original design we've been riffing on:
(Thanks, Luke, for this email template)
and thanks to you reader, for being here and checking it out. on with the show
π december 19th
gosh this was a long time ago. it's harder than it should be to reach back and access this headspace. there really is a good argument to be made for keeping these somewhat reasonably on-time. but let's see .. i was just getting fully back on my feet after the orchi here, re-engaging with projects and things. i took the tape machine home and fixed one of the outputs. we made tamales at the house on christmas, that was really sweet.
i had a few psychiatry appointments. more stuff that's kind of hard to talk about in this venue. maybe the main body of this letter will just be really short and i'll try to use it like kind of a reset button and just start working on the next one right away to get back on track. like staying up a whole night to fix your sleep schedule — that totally works, right?
the fascist death spiral kept on spiraling. i plugged a bit more into some local things, which i also won't get into any detail about here in the spirit of shutting the fuck up, even though its honestly all very basic and above-board, just to practice the habit. but man, it really does work as an antidote to dooming, in the same stupid annoying way that exercise works as an antidote to depression.
i can also totally see how people burn themselves out so bad so often. like, there's something i can do? it directly addresses an urgent need? it's texting me right now? that's gotta be more important than going for a walk, reading a book, i can skip one shower, pick up my groceries tomorrow ...
it almost makes me glad i've had a lifetime's worth of practice fending off internalized nonsense about being a lazy piece of shit. thanks executive dysfunction!1 anyway, it's a marathon, not a sprint — another trite, smug truism that, maddeningly, functions quite effectively in practice. so i'm trying to internalize that too.
π january 2nd
jude and benny had everybody over for a big ol winterfeast, that was absurdly healing. made a whole damn turkey and like a million sides :') i did get a new tape demo out again this moon too; continuing the theme of wild genre swings, this one is a tender acoustic affair even featuring a bit of serendipitous studio-bound "field" recording. i feel pretty good about it even if it's possibly not destined for the rock record .. i might not even re-record it, the lo-fi polaroid vibe kind of suits the material. maybe i .. release it as a single? but what does that even mean for me in the year of luigi 2026, beyond just posting it on the website like i already did? meh, whatevster, i'll figure it out later. that feels like a question for after an album release.
i've been messing with linocuts more since the strength card too. i came up with this design by iterating through some digital drawings, printing one out on a laser printer, and transferring the toner off that print onto a carving block using a clothes iron through a piece of parchment paper. i'm pretty excited about that process because i already like to play with positive and negative space in strict 2 color black and white so much in my digital drawings, i feel like my style can transfer to this medium well and it adds some really welcome texture and physicality on top of it. i'm turning over different ways to do a run of this, maybe patches or something? i could hem the edges and make them look really slick ..
oh yeah, i fixed this sewing machine that's been languishing unfunctional in the house since i got here. originally i just ordered a new bobbin case for it online since it was missing one, but then after putting it in it still wouldn't sew at all .. so ensued this whole journey of exploring it, figuring out how everything connects, and also learning about how it's supposed to work in the first place, since i didn't know anything about sewing machines to begin with. (thanks for your help with this fran :]) it turned out the timing was off in multiple ways, and tracking it all down and adjusting it was immensely satisfying. and it works now, zig-zag stitches and everything! so i'm looking forward to seeing what mischief i can get into with it.
excuse the instagram screenshot in that link; i won't make a habit of it, i swear. i just needed another flimsy segue so i could mention the fact that i got back on instagram after 5 years (!) this moon, for the express purpose of hawking my various wares and services. the less said about this the better i think, but you can follow @ aloe.pup if you're on there and you want to do me a little favor.
as the moon waned to a close i drove out to ny state to visit the bestiehouse again, for some one-on-one time and recording sessions with andrew while leroy and baby were away. they're working on a really fun, beautiful album and i'm honored i got to be a part of it! and of course the hang was straight chicken soup for my weary soul. i'll be sure to direct you to that release when it drops, and not just because i kinda shredded on it ;)
π january 18th
your present lunation began with the new moon of january 18th, waxed to the full moon of february 1st (imbolc!), and wanes to the new moon of february 17th. saturday, january 25th was the first-quarter moon of this lunation.
no gigs! moving on..
here comes your tarot card!
your card is: the queen of pentacles. pull your own cards at aloe.gay/tarot
oh, huh. very interesting. i hadn't thought at all about what to do with repeats ... i mean, i don't think there's any reason not to regard them as legitimate, i guess i just wasn't expecting one so soon? although, this being letter number 8, that's only like, what, a 1 in ~10 chance. twice as common as a nat 20. nothing too crazy at all!
in context then it's tempting to read this like, "hey, remember august?" and yeah, wow, it has been two whole seasons since then. feels both closer and further away, as "points in time" almost always do. here, let me just reproduce the whole caption i previously included:
The fine line between owning your success and staying present for the world as it burns is treacherous, blurred, and a trickster— as articulated by The Queen of Pentacles. How do we bask in the rewards we deserve for our work, while simultaneously reaching out? How do we create art that fills our soul and smashes our trauma, while simultaneously oο¬ering humanity, warmth, support, or a lesson? When the system (or our own industry) is at war with our bodies, our challenges, or our identities— we deserve a break— to laugh, to dance, to fuck, to succeed, to have our needs met. Care grounds us— it allows us to care for others. Its vital for creating words, images, sounds, and sanctuaries for those who need it most.
--- cristy c. road, the next world tarot
it hits a bit different, but kind of the same,, right? really relevant to all that "marathon not sprint" stuff .. but all that was relevant in august, too. all the questions road poses, and the queen (as we've discussed) being such a reflective card .. it feels like a call to practice some of that ourselves. for me it actually presented a pretty straightforward opportunity to look back at the history of this very project, especially in light of feeling a bit discouraged by my tardiness, and recall some of the summery excitement i was feeling at its outset. what's changed with the seasons, and what's cycling back? what's evolving through time with me and you, never to return to quite the same shape? i like that thing i did there where i revisited the previous letter's card. maybe i'll catch that on the next one, if i remember.
and maybe i'll take cristy's lead as a reader, here, and pose a question to you. what have you been working on this fall and winter, in the calendrical hemisphere from lughnasadh to imbolc? what's different, what's the same? what's seasonal, what's fleeting, what's enduring?
thank you so much for reading my newsletter! we're hosted by comradery, a cooperatively-owned subscription platform for artists and community projects. i host all my music, writing, and all the work i possibly can online for free; if it means something to you and you want to see more of it, please consider making a recurring donation as low as $1 a month on comradery, or a one-time tip on ko-fi. anything helps a whole lot in my effort to build a sustainable art practice and life for myself. my website is aloe.gay, and you can write back to me at aloe (at) aloe (dot) gay. i hope you have a good moon, i'll see you around the next first quarter ~
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footnotes
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im being glib by reducing this to a dysfunctionality. there are many things i love and value about the way i experience non-linear neurodivergent time β©