2025 was quite a year! Dr. Wife and I often talk about how long the year felt, for good and for ill.
It was a year with many ups and downs. Dr. Wife’s third year of residency has been brutal, but she is doing well as the co-chief resident. My work schedule has been far more manageable, but financing and buying a house—as well as planning a wedding!—took up a good deal of my time in the latter half of the year (to Dr. Wife’s immense credit, most of the latter-stage wedding planning fell to her—she really nailed the fun details, things I would have neglected or not thought of). My maternal grandfather passed away; several of her close friends and family have had personal and medical crises.
But we also got married—woooooot!—and bought a house. We have great dogs and even better families. We have immensely enjoyed spending so much time together over the Christmas holiday, even if we’ve been rocketing all over the Carolinas moving furniture. We are excited for 2026!
What are your hopes and dreams for 2026, dear readers? Leave a comment and let me know. I think Dr. Wife and I primarily want to get moved into our house completely—and get her through residency!
Christmastime is pretty busy for yours portly, which means my shaving routine tends to get disrupted. I usually find myself nearing beard capacity by the time Christmas approaches, so I always take the time to do a thorough shave before the big day.
That being the case, I made up a little song, “Clean-Shaven at Christmas,” some years ago. My nephews in particular love it, and will sing it—unprompted!—as Christmas approaches (I also taught them to wake up on Christmas morning shouting, “It’s Christmas! It’s Christmas!”).
So it was that I decided to piece together a YouTube Short of the phases of my shaving with my voice accompanying. There’s even a gross closeup of where I cut myself while shaving—gasp!
There this obscure piece of music sat until my September, when my pastor had the idea to pull out some lesser-known hymns for our church to sing during our fall revival services. My pastor shares something of my absurdist sense of humor, so when he stumbled upon “From Greenland’s Icy Mountains,” he half-jokingly proposed we sing it one night as our congregational piece. I enthusiastically agreed to play it, and so it became reality.
I took the opportunity to record a little bit of it and upload it to YouTube. Below is the church’s valiant attempt at singing a song that virtually no one in the congregation knew:
The 2025 off-cycle elections were not exactly a great source of joy and celebration for the Right. They’re not reason to panic, but they are definitely a warning that we can’t let our enthusiasm wane—and that we need to make sure we’re actively attempting to address the concerns of American voters.
It’s easy to swallow the black pill. Yours portly has been very overwhelmed lately between work, planning a wedding, and buying a house. Dr. Fiancée is exhausted from a series of heavy, hard rotations. We’re both ready to get to the wedding and the cruise ship, and just unplug for a week.
In such times, it’s hard to do what I need to do most—submit it all to God. That’s what I’m trying to do, but prayers are appreciated.
That said, I have not taken the black pill. All of these stressful life events will have quite obvious and immediate positive outcomes. It’s just getting through them that’s the challenge!
On Saturday I wrote a detailed analysis of the 2025 off-cycle elections. I don’t think they’re quite as dire as everyone makes them out to be—at least, not dire for conservatives’ electoral prospects in 2026. If you’re living in New York City, the outcome is pretty bad.
Regular reader and contributor Ponty asked me my thoughts about the election of Zohran Mamdani, the Socialist Islamic Mayor-Elect of New York City. He voiced a view he and I have both seen circulating: the disbelief that New York City could elect an openly Muslim mayor a mere twenty-four years after 9/11.
I boiled down Mamdani’s election to five factors (and I am sure there are more): massive immigration, identity politics, socialism’s current appeal, Americans’ short memories, and large-scale demographic shifts. Really, it’s little different from why Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez got elected the first time: she is Hispanic in a district that is overwhelmingly Hispanic and Left-leaning. That shouldn’t shock us.
With that, here is my take on the Mamdani situation:
Call me Portlyanna-ish, but I don’t think the off-season elections were the dire warning to Trump and Republicans that much of the media—both mainstream and alternative—have made them out to be. I think there is some cause for concern in the enthusiasm department, but the trumpeting of these elections being a massive victory for the Democrats—and a huge blow to Trump—are more overblown that Michael Moore.
Consider the big three elections that captured most of the media’s focus: Zohran Mamdani in the New York City mayoral race; Abigail Spanberger and the violent Jay Jones in the Virginia gubernatorial and State attorney general races, respectively; and that lady with a man’s name in the New Jersey gubernatorial race. None of these races were a real surprise:
Mamdani appealed to the base of NYC voters: recent immigrants, ethnic minorities, and white socialists;
Virginia is very blue in a cycle where Trump is not on the ballot and tens of thousands of federal workers—who vote Democratic anyway—are sitting at home, unpaid, who are highly motivated to get back at Trump;
and New Jersey is… New Jersey. It always looks like a State that might fulfill our wildest hopes that, “this year, it’s finally going to happen”—the refrain of every University of South Carolina Gamecocks football fan since time immemorial (I write—painfully—as a Gamecock myself).
Democrats are naturally going to distort—their favorite pastime, it seems—these results as a clear sign that momentum is on their side and that Trump is losing support. Conservatives should not be amplifying this message if it’s not true.
Halloween is a week past, but I still have some episodes of 31 Days of Halloween to share! By now, most interested readers have sought these final videos out on their own, but in case you missed any of the later episodes, I wanted to share them today.
On 1 October 2025 I launched a YouTube Shorts series, 31 Days of Halloween. The concept is simple: one, one-minute (or shorter) Halloween/horror movie review every day for the month of October. These reviews are super lo-fi—just yours portly recording on a phone, sitting at a desk. No frills, no fancy editing, just me giving my impressions of the films in an unscripted, fast way.
A quick note: most of the links below are Amazon Affiliate links, typically linking to the movie on DVD or Blu-Ray, as well as the books they’re based upon (or the novelizations of the films). I receive a portion of any purchases made through those links, at no additional cost to you.
Day 23: Nosferatu (1922)
Day 23 is the 1922 German Expressionist silent film classic Nosferatu.
On 1 October 2025 I launched a YouTube Shorts series, 31 Days of Halloween. The concept is simple: one, one-minute (or shorter) Halloween/horror movie review every day for the month of October. These reviews are super lo-fi—just yours portly recording on a phone, sitting at a desk. No frills, no fancy editing, just me giving my impressions of the films in an unscripted, fast way.
In case you’ve missed any installments, I’m featuring the several days of reviews. If you want to catchup on Days 10-16, check out last week’s YouTube Roundup.
A quick note: most of the links below are Amazon Affiliate links, typically linking to the movie on DVD or Blu-Ray, as well as the books they’re based upon (or the novelizations of the films). I receive a portion of any purchases made through those links, at no additional cost to you.
On 1 October 2025 I launched a YouTube Shorts series, 31 Days of Halloween. The concept is simple: one, one-minute (or shorter) Halloween/horror movie review every day for the month of October. These reviews are super lo-fi—just yours portly recording on a phone, sitting at a desk. No frills, no fancy editing, just me giving my impressions of the films in an unscripted, fast way.
In case you’ve missed any installments, I’m featuring the several days of reviews. If you want to catchup on Days 1-9, check out last week’s YouTube Roundup.
A quick note: most of the links below are Amazon Affiliate links, typically linking to the movie on DVD or Blu-Ray, as well as the books they’re based upon (or the novelizations of the films). I receive a portion of any purchases made through those links, at no additional cost to you.
The Portly Politico 