We are now entering into month 5 of newslettering! November will be the 6-month mark; how shall we celebrate? I have some changes I’d like to make so perhaps that will be a good milestone to work toward/around. Maybe I can hit 100 subscribers by then? In the meantime, hello, how are you.

I really expected this last week to be hotter, more summery-er, and that really fizzled out as much as my motivation did. Not a complaint, mind you! (About the weather, mind you.) I’m full of anticipation for the autumn; something about this whole year just seems… messy. It’ll probably stay that way, but, the autumn times can still be very cozy.

With September already bringing some unexpectedly cooler days and gloomier vibes, I do find myself nesting once again. A lot of people do Spring Cleaning, but I do Autumn Nesting. Rearrange some lamps, update some areas of decor, get things organized and prepared for me to be by and large At Home until like, April. I have some nesting projects I started last… Octoberish that, due to various constraints or lack of resources, never got finished, and have sat untouched yet thoroughly in the way in the year since, and I’d very much like to reclaim some of that space.

If you’re the “plan ahead” type, Halloween is not that far away. Also, it’s on a Friday this year!! I should make plans. (The last time Halloween fell on a Good Day of the Week To Be Halloweening was 2020… t’was a Saturday I believe. So. You’ve probably earned some planning and partying this year, too.)

Allllsoooo, before we get going, a reminder! I still have this little poll thing that I’d really appreciate your input on (if you’re new here, welcome, feel free to vote for whatever sounds the most exciting to you). This won’t affect your reader experience in any regard, there’s no silly little funnel or triggered email chain that occurs when you select an option, I’m just tryna get a pulse on things. A heartfelt thank you to the folks who have responded! This’ll be the last time I bug you, so please and also thank you in advance. 😘

Also I literally just realized that I never really looked at the survey y’all get directed to upon signing up for this newsletter, haha oooops. 😅 So maybe I’ll put together a special edition summarizing the first six months of merrick:confidential?? Could be fun!

☑️ Did This - Ended up going out two nights in a row again last weekend (yeehaw), so Monday was pretty mellow. Tuesday my apartment building finally replaced my broken window blinds, after which I promptly climbed a ladder to redo because I’m like that. Went to the dentist on Thursday, hashtag self-care hashtag adulting. Remembered to update my SFW Linktree with this newsletter lol. Spent the rest of the week in a mellow haze/malaise of getting a few household chores done, but otherwise nothing of note. I did do a lot of research (“research” 😏) on camming, tho.

📋 Gonna Do That - This next week is actually super open, which I’m excited about because I need a good week of mild weather and basic routine. I’ve been playing around with having more focused “themes” to my weeks, devoting the bulk of my time to a single project… sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. I think this week I’d like to focus on queueing fansite content and scheduling social media promotions, adopting something akin to Panam’s Triple A approach. Assess on Monday, assemble Tues-Weds, action for the remainder of the week. Maybe a coffee shop work session somewhere in the mix? Someone asked if I wanted to visit the Japanese Gardens later in the week (definite “maybe”), and I plan to round things out with a very cool concert.

I’m wrapping up this email at the time of the Full Moon Lunar Eclipse in Pisces, which is my Sun sign (and also Mercury - Communication). Normally, Vibe Check would be either a quote from my latest journal entry, or something that stood out in my week. But I won’t be journaling until later tonight, and since I gave my brain the week off, I’ve no profound statements to share. BUT I saw something about today’s full moon eclipse closing out a period that opened last year mid-September, so I thought it would be interesting to revisit my journal entry from that time.

2024 was a rough year for me… for my personal health, for Irma’s health, for trying to retain any amount of control over the trajectory of my life. Most of it was navigated solo, without much direct support beyond an occasional check-in from a friend, or escort to Yet Another Blood Draw (in case I passed out after). It is my life, after all, so really it’s not anyone else’s responsibility to manage. But it did become really hard to drag myself around from Difficult Thing to Difficult Thing while still showing up to support and—as a professional content creator—to entertain others. Living like that can leave you feeling really empty, actually.

Fortunately, I knew it was temporary. Challenges are temporary. While things did get scary for a moment, Irma’s health eventually turned around, and she’s remained stable since (tho I’m terribly in debt over the whole thing, and she’s due for more labs haha fun). I’m finally back on my own healthcare grind, though in true zebra form the results remain inconclusive (story of my life!). All this to say… there is a certain strength found when you know that no one’s going to come and save you. You just identify what needs to happen… and you do it. You identify what you need to make it happen, and you get it. You become your own guiding light.

Has the year since gotten any easier? Yes and no, and yes. I’m at least more resolved on a few fronts, in terms of self-care and personal responsibility. And I’m learning to let myself have some fun even when I don’t feel like I’m fulfilling all my responsibilities elsewhere (it’s a balancing act, but I can at least remove some Productivity-Culture guilt from my life). I don’t feel like I’m entirely back on track, but I’m more willing to have hard conversations with myself about what’s working and what needs to change, and I feel more equipped to identify how to make those changes. Do I feel like I actually have the resources needed for those changes to occur?? Magic 8-Ball sez… remains to be seen.

September 2024 was a turning point. I may not be meeting my personal metrics for where I wanted to be a year later, but I at least feel solid about the work I have done this year.

When I speak of “seasons,” yes sometimes I do mean, like, seasons of the year, but as is the case in the above quote, I moreso speak to seasons of life. Sometimes you are in a season of growth, sometimes hibernation. Sometimes you are the Hermit card and sometimes you are Strength. Some seasons are financially lucrative and you have the capacity for high-volume work, other times you are in a season of investment and evolution in your work. I’d say the latter is where I am now, and the time I’ve spent shining that light directly on the challenges I’ve faced has given me some much needed insights… and perhaps more hard truths than I’d enjoy.

But just like challenges, seasons are temporary. Time continues on. The next Full Moon Lunar Eclipse in Pisces is August 28, 2026. Where will things be then? Where will I be? Remains to be seen. But I don’t think I’m going to feel bad about how I choose to fill the year ahead of me.

🎵 Listening - For this month’s Bandcamp Friday, I ended up only buying one thing: Portland dungeon synth artist Grim Father’s full discography. Now, I’m going to link you to his album Observer because it has a lot of tracks he plays live, but if you like this one and feel like diving in you can grab the full discography there at the top. (Also it is just a really good album.) Previously, the only thing I’d bought was Parade of Thieves; the rest has been on my wishlist for tooo long. Happy 5-year anniversary to your first album release, dude!

🪟 Looking - After four years of 1-2 out of 3 window blinds being broken at any given time, it’s so fucking nice to be able to look out all three of the windows in my apartment. I honestly wasn’t sure it was going to work out this time but third try’s a charm, they came through with replacements for all three and had them up in less than 2 hours. Just in time for me to raise them high, open all the windows, and enjoy the chill gloom of the early rainy season!! (Also the winter sun does a lot of the heavy lifting to both light and heat my apartment; bring it on!)

☕ Drinking - I’ve enjoyed having a Sodastream for a couple years now, and paired with a few “water enhancing flavours” it’s been nice for a 3-beverages-on-the-desk girly like myself. I very rarely drink actual soda (after growing up with a solid two-cans-a-day habit; bleh) but I was excited to finally try Portland Syrups after discovering them earlier this year. I picked up the True Cola (it’s okay) and Vanilla (I love it) syrups from local zero-waste refill chain Mama’s and Hapa’s (a store I LOVE and shop at regularly), but if they don’t get that PSL syrup in I might be ordering online…

🦷 Scheduling - While there weren’t any huge problems found during my dental exam this past week, it’s been maybe 20-odd years since I’ve been to a dentist proper*, so I knew there’d be a cavity or two in the mix. Now I have repairs scheduled three weeks in a row into early October(!), with a dental cleaning TBD once they hire on a new hygienist. The dentist did recommend a night guard, which I was already looking at so done and done; he also said that if I don’t get an implant to replace *a broken molar I had removed in 2020, I’m at risk of losing the matching upper molar due to it basically just falling out of my skull in the next few years. So that’s cool.

🎸 If you’re reading this it’s already too late… this was the closing weekend of the iconic Nirvana exhibit at Seattle’s MoPOP (Museum of Pop Culture). As much as I understand why fans are upset by this closure, I can’t deny that from a business perspective it makes sense. 14 years is a notably long time for an installation like this, especially when the rest of the museum/experience has continued to rotate and evolve. Tbh I look forward to seeing what kind of exhibit goes into the space in the next year and hope it’s something equally as historic!! (Source: article author Jennifer Stavros on bsky)

☢️ This “Luigi Manigone” build for Fallout: New Vegas has been making the rounds, and it’s both humourously entertaining, surprisingly thorough, and bitingly clever. Late game perks Mister Sandman and Nerd Rage?? Accurate.

🎵 I actually like the new Phantomgram single! I’ve been pretty mixed on their more recent music, which is fine because they’ve done plenty I do enjoy, but I’m encouraged by this one track at least; they’re one of my fave bands to see live so we’ll see how the full album finds me. Unfortunately their newer music, including this single, is available everywhere BUT Bandcamp.

🤖 This was a long read but was exactly the kind of deep-dive into modern implementations and interpretations of both the early Internet and human psychology I’m into: The Virtual Pet Games of My 90s Youth and AI Ethics: Some Thoughts. Personally I never got into all the virtual pets stuff nor even the Sims—well that’s not entirely true, I did play SimLife which is possibly even worse because it’s selective breeding and genetic manipulation, but I digress. Anyway. Next time you thank Siri for answering your question, give yourself a little pat on the back for not being an animal abuser I guess. (Source: author of the piece, Faine Greenwood on bsky)

💾 (P.S. - if you’re demented or have some kind of God complex, you can play or download SimLife on Archive.org.)

🧚‍♀️ Having apparently been rather out of the loop on things, I just today discovered that photographer-turned-filmographer Chad Michael Ward has a feature film in the works! And you can support it on Kickstarter. Fairy Dust is described as a surreal 80s-inspired genderqueer dark fantasy film, and I bet it’s going to be absurdly gorgeous. Follow @chadmichaelward on IG for ongoing project updates. (Many many years ago, he directed a music video for a friend’s music project, which absolutely holds up.)

🤔 Would you delete your second brain? Years or potentially even decades of notes, links, and reference points… gone? For where I am right now and the work that I’m doing, I’m not sure I’m that kind of brave! But the author does make a compelling argument in favour of doing so. (Must be subscribed on Medium to read full article.)

🤷‍♀️ I’ll block you based on vibes alone. As we’ve come to say on Bluesky: Block early, block often! It’s no personal.

I heard something recently that the ideal length for a weekly newsletter is ~500 words, with something like a monthly deep dive running closer to 800-1200 words. This one is wrapping up at ummm 2500? 😅 But I’ve heard from a handful of y’all that you are still enjoying the format and the insights, so I guess we’re good? And/or, I’m sorry, but, you did sign up for this.

Don’t forget to check in on your quiet friends and your elderly neighbors, and also the super strong person who always seems to have their shit together. It’s time to fortify our connections and our communities before the dark settles in for the winter, to shine any light you have to spare on others. Dark but still cozy is the goal, and a single candle can really set the mood.

xox,