Aleen Mean

I wasn’t surprised to learn that Tim Cook donated a million bucks to Trump’s inaugural fund.

I don’t claim to know how Cook ranks his life’s priorities, but it’s a pretty safe bet that Apple’s ongoing success is pretty high on the list. I’m sure he thinks it’s better to start out 2025 in Trump’s good graces and hope that it’ll at least help keep Apple Inc. out of the aspiring autocrat’s future fits of pique. A million dollars is a lot of money, but it’s nothing when the future of your nearly $4,000,000,000,000 company is at stake. (Yes, that is TWELVE ZEROES.)

Cook is not the only big name in tech to contribute to the fund. He joins Amazon, Meta, and Sam Altman in donating a million dollars to the inauguration committee. Robinhood is donating two million. Uber and its CEO have each donated a million. (This is all per Reuters a couple of weeks ago.)

Frankly, while I think it’s incredibly important for us to know that Cook has donated a massive chunk of change to Trump, I don’t think it’s interesting to speculate about what he hopes to get in return for making this contribution—it seems pretty evident that he’s hedging his bets and trying to save Apple (and therefore himself) from Trump’s mercurial nature. To me, the more important question is, “How did Cook reach the decision to donate any amount of money to Trump’s inaugural fund?”

Was Cook feeling pressure because other tech companies and CEOs were contributing? Did someone on Apple’s board suggest that he make this move? Did Trump himself call and make a demand, thinly veiled or overt? Did Cook just wake up one morning and feel like blowing a cool million in support of one of the world’s most repugnant people?

Why would he make a donation to someone who is the antithesis of everything Apple has been espousing for years? We’ll never know, but the context leading up to his decision to donate feels important.¹

Welp.

It’s 2025.

I’m not looking forward to this year—I anticipate that it will be a challenge for many of us, especially in the United States and other countries where we can well and truly see the whites of fascism’s eyes.

I don’t want to start the year with dread, though. I want to step forward with at least a modicum of hope. So here, dear reader, are my wishes for us in the days and weeks to come:

May we judiciously engage with social media and media outlets. Let’s mute key words and block bad actors with abandon. Let’s close browser tabs and put down our phones more often than we are driven to continue drowning in misery and despair.

May we have enough money to cover our own needs and help provide for others. Let’s contribute to mutual aid funds and donate to organizations doing the work we cannot and cover prescription costs for friends who need help…and maybe buy some LEGO for ourselves, as a treat.

May we rest well. May our sleep be restorative and our down time energizing so that we can fight the many battles that lie ahead.

May we learn more about the people and world around us. Society cannot get better if we do not understand how things are broken to begin with, and we are in desperate need of change.

May we speak up for those who need our voices and amplify the voices of those who need our support.

May we find community to support and uplift us.

May we find glimmers of joy in the dark.

I don’t know if it’s possible to thrive in the year ahead, but let’s try.

I’m laying in bed, trying to work up the force of will to get up and prepare for the day. Yesterday, Justin’s mom was transported from the hospital bed she’d been occupying for a week to her bed in a hospice facility. She’s not drinking much or eating at all, so I doubt she’ll be there long. This is the end of three years of chemotherapy and immunotherapy and radiation and paracenteses and nutrient infusions and blood transfusions.

I’m not ready to talk about her as she was or to unpack my complicated feelings about the last few years. We’ll be in a world where she was soon enough, and I’m happy to live in a world where she still is for a while longer.

Over the last week, as it’s become more and more apparent that modern medicine has no more help to offer my mother-in-law, I’ve been thinking a lot about grief and grieving.

I always block out, in the days and weeks and months after a friend or family member dies, that mourning is not one big event. Rather, it’s a million million series of little grievances; it’s mourning by a thousand paper cuts.

Some of these cuts we knew we’d acquire. Last night, we said goodbye to her dogs when we gave them to their new owner. We’re searching for good homes for her cats. We’re thinking about what to do with the things in her house—all the mementoes of her 70 years on the planet.

Some of these cuts are acquired only in retrospect, a series of small finalities we didn’t know would hurt so much. We’ve already banded together to pick on Justin for the last time. Commented on the choices people made on home improvement shows. Compared Wordle results. Laughed at her pets. Shared a meal. Had a conversation.

Eventually, I’ll stop noticing the tiny things that mark the world without her in it. And then I’ll notice that I’m noticing less, which is a cut of its own. Life will move on, but it will never be the same.

How is it 2023 and our color choices for Apple devices are still either “garish baby shower” or “Victorian woman in the late stages of mourning”?

Because I’m a pioneer, I have kept some kind of blog since the mid-1990s.

I’ve never written with any kind of purpose in mind; I just needed some way to get the words out of my brain and in front of a couple of other people. It’s never been about building a large audience or establishing expertise or creating a portfolio. I write because I need to write. I write because, for whatever reason, I feel like I am the most Aleen when I am trying to wrangle words into sentences that feel right.

Due to a variety of factors, both personal and global, I haven’t really written much in…years. More years than I want to consider. It’s strange to say that I can feel the absence of writing in my life, but I can. I can point to a spot on the left side of my skull, toward the back, and tell you, “Here. This is where it’s wonky.”

I always say that I’m going to fix it soon. I’ll write again soon, when the timing is better, when there are fewer barriers, when things are a little more optimal. I always know that’s a lie when I say it, though. Sometimes, you just go with the amalgamation of circumstances you have and turn soon into now.

At some point, writing here became overwhelming because I started thinking of it as a place where I needed content that was Serious & Well Considered. I think this is because I had Twitter for the random observations and ridiculous jokes that would spring into my brain. Twitter serves me less and less well as time goes on, though, and I find myself craving the security of my own space. I don’t know what that means for this blog, really, but I guess we’ll find out together!