HI, I’M TERRA.

It would have been perfect were it not for the stench of my neighbor’s cologne. It was just after sunset, my feet were bare, my bourbon glass full. It was spring, but the brutal kind with highs already pushing toward 90. Still, the nights were kind. Warm, breezy, largely free of the mosquitoes that I knew would plague us in the months ahead. I turned my face toward the breeze, and then came the assault. The cologne, a frequent pollutant to my outdoor spaces — this stench of a man-child who surely must bathe in the musk of what I can only imagine comes from the nether regions of creatures I’d rather not encounter in a dark alleyway. I held my ground and shook the stench from my nostrils. I

What a year 2025 has already been. 2024 also tried to kill me, but here’s a rundown of some highlights.