Happy New Year, my faithful readers! While your girl has been busy with some end-of-year / early-January blues, I do hope your holiday season has been as tranquil as the rich Southern matriarch Victoria from The White Lotus (when on her pills), that your friends and family showed you more affection than a love-bomber on a second date, and that your plates were as full as if it was my Bulgarian grandma filling them up for my American brother-in-law. ...

It’s December 23rd, I’m waiting for my plane to take off from the Paris CDG airport, lifting me towards my hometown for the Christmas holidays. “Girl you sweet like Fanta, Fanta” is banging in my AirPods for about 15 seconds before I anxiously switch to another short musical blurb, and then another. Whenever I find myself in a particular state of mind, when my thoughts are short, uneasy, frantically jumping from one to the other, inevitably, my Spotify playlist follows. ...