What a week it’s been! What a month. And only halfway through the year? Oof. There’s a Mercury Retrograde on the horizon too… July should be interesting. On the plus side, I’ve been sleeping pretty well this week, waking up to both my cat and my dog on the bed a few mornings before settling into some extremely pleasant rainy day vibes. Hello, I’m Merrick Monroe, and this is my weekly newsletter. Remember, you signed up for this! 😁

I’ve been getting settled into my new iPad and so far, so good. I’m feeling a bit nitpicky about some things, which I’m largely attributing to the learning curve and having a zillion more settings to customize… though at the same time it’s surprising to have any learning curve with an Apple product. I guess that’s where the “Pro” part of this model comes in? Gotta learn how to use the pro tool. I’ve not really done too much proper work on it yet, opting to just spend this first week mucking about and figuring things out organically. Also assessing which accessories I do actually need… someone on this Thread(s) reminded me about Paperlike screen covers so that and a little folio are my first grabs, but I’ll do more of a rundown once I’ve got a full kit of accessories assembled and the workflow to justify it.

Today I’m resting up from going to the big local Ren Faire yesterday. It was a great time, but it always is! Every visit, a different adventure. Someone had asked me if I was looking forward to it… does Irma like to roll in grass?? 😂 The weather was perfect for spending a day outside with friends, the mead was chilled, and the turkey legs were well-roasted. I took my Fujifilm Coolpix 3D camera to document the action, and I’m looking forward to digging into those photos! But lots of sun exposure can also trigger a chronic illness flair, so fingers crossed I don’t pay a higher price for one day of whimsical escapism. My back is already angry about things so as soon as I hit send it’s painkillers and heatpad time.

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☑️ Done and Done - Played around with Kanban boards and scheduling during this week’s cohort cowork, vented muchly about Fansly bowing to pressure from payment processors, chatted with my biz coach about it, made roast-chicken-and-veggie-scraps stock, got back into an exercise routine and using my vibration plate for PT, set up my new iPad, sat in on a couple webinars/panels, went to Ren Faire(!).

📋 Coming up - I need to email the vet to get some Fear Free meds for Irma for the 4th of July weekend (the fireworks have already started, wtf), will also finally reply to the vet re: Irma’s last labwork results, I’m getting burgers with my friend for his birthday, I need to think thoughts and get serious about Quarter 3.

This month went weird before I even had an opportunity to get serious about intentions or goals, which I suppose worked in my favour because that left me lots of room to rest and recover without feeling like I was behind. As is true for everyone, I’ve had some pretty shit months in recent years, and even with the injury, bad reaction to meds, and general delays, I feel pretty good about how June went! And that’s on having a positive mindset, and recognizing rest as an essential part of productivity!! Because now, after allowing myself all that downtime, I can’t wait to get back into some projects, and know how to pace myself. 🖤

The Macro View: Cat bite, urgent care, and x-rays, oh my! Took Irma to the vet, bought a skirt at an estate market, walked the local Chinese Garden, posted pictures of the moon on IG. Went to a friend’s birthday party, got lunch with another friend, went to Ren Faire with friends, booked travel to visit my mom. Did some virtual coworking, had some big convos with my biz coach/cohort, monetized this newsletter, deleted a ton of stuff from my Fansly, set up a second monitor on my desk, bought an iPad Pro. Took a lot of acetamenaphin, rested a shit ton, and enjoyed a solid week of Juneuary weather.

Didn’t Make the Cut: Holding shame over needing time to rest & recover—could never be me! (That shelving has been sitting in my back closet section for too long, so what’s another month?) I never did get that referral to a hand specialistic the urgent care promised me.

Goals for July: Get the shelving up and organize some clothing (barely even a two-day project), I’m visiting my mom for a weekend, restart the Hustle to Hire newsletter and maybe focus on blogging/editorial and not site updates, start using DaVinci Resolve on my iPad to edit videos (which goes hand-in-hand with file organization work), hit up a second, slightly smaller local Ren Faire; it would be nice to see a movie in a theater but idk what.

BujoSotM:

This month I rearranged the order of my habit trackers for the first time in forever, as a subtle way of a reminding me what to prioritize; it’ll get rearranged again for July. I also added a Photography tracker but, well, bad month for that, and I might rename it to “Creative”? But I really like having the reminder to Do Photography specifically, as an Intentional Act of Creation. On the calendar page, you can see that I crossed out a few items instead of using correction tape to remove them… often I’ll just use correction tape over revisions but I kind of wanted a visual record of having cancelled plans this month, to remind myself that it’s okay when plans change and that nobody’s actually going to get mad at me.

I remember when I started this newsletter, I pointed out that (perhaps ironically) I’m rather averse to “being perceived”, and I think that’s because often in my life being perceived has meant being criticized. Which, you know, I’ve been working on (partly via this newsletter; hi). I’ve often worried too much about how the outside world views me, my actions, my choices. Do people think I’m doing “too much”? Do they think I’m doing enough? Regaining some tolerance for being actively public about my life has helped remind me that, well basically, it doesn’t matter what other people think, it matters what I think. Other people don’t have the same perspective about my own life that I do; any critique is formed as a comparison to their own life and I can’t possibly be responsible for that!

It’s like when a planet goes retrograde… it’s not actually moving backward. The Earth is just moving faster (or slower) in its own orbit, and as we pass that other planet, it creates the optical illusion of it slowing down, stopping, and then reversing direction. But that’s just our perspective, because in reality, that planet is still moving forward. Just… at its own pace.

Sooo… let’s talk about Fansly. In my Under the Desk section way back in my second newsletter, I talked about how excited I was that Fansly had been performing well for me, going toe-to-toe with my OnlyFans. After that, I spent time figuring out how to invest more of my time and energy on that specific platform… adjusting tiers, locking in on new benefits and pricing structures, a new posting routine, etc. I made graphics, y’all. Then I got injured, couldn’t use my hand for a month, and juuust as I’m like, okay, it’s time to get back to work maybe I think! Fansly went ahead and pushed out a big change to their acceptable content policies. And it’s not great. Here’s a great run-down by Fleshbot, but I’ll summarize below…

The long and the short of it: no cannabis, no alcohol, no more furries, no public settings, no amateur wrestling. They even doubled down on their hypnosis ban (no more mesmerizing synonyms!), and specified that you can’t employ any AI content that users (customers) would interact with directly i.e. no AI chat bots… but amazingly, AI-generated content is still allowed?! Of course, none of this has been posted publicly by Fansly themselves, no public acknowledgement of these changes (afaik), and apart from Fansly creators and news outlets talking about it, the consumer portion of the userbase has not been directly notified. Oh, and we had 5 days to comply. 5!

I spent three hours on Thursday scrolling back and forth through four years of my content on Fansly to find the random posts I needed to remove from my page, which gave my hand/arm quite the tendonitis ache. I don’t know how many posts I deleted, but I removed roughly 1.6k photos and 22 videos. It’s very, very frustrating to have lost those wonderful photosets, the time I invested in writing engaging captions and promoting the content, and the momentum I was gathering to really lean into my Fansly page. It’s dysregulating to my nervous system as a creator to feel forsaken in this way, and these niches aren’t even themes I worked heavily in. The loss for me is largely personal, unlike others who have their whole brands and careers invested in these niches.

I’m working on a longer piece about this whole thing, including how it plays into Project 2025, why credit card processors have say in what kind of content gets posted on a porn site, and why non-pornographers should be concerned. Basically I have Thoughts—Opinions, even—but this particular newsletter should only be so long.

What’s the long play on this, for me personally? Yet to be seen. I had a helpful convo with my business coach about things on Thursday; although I’m working with them primarily for Hustle to Hire, their values are aligned such that my work in the program often vacillates between H2H and my spicy work (because they’re connected!). So, we talked, and they provided some useful perspectives on how and where I invest my time, and guided me to examine how I can utilize this sudden change as a jumping off point for further growth in my career. Sometimes, it can be really fucking helpful to hear your own thoughts reflected by to you by a more neutral third party.

Back to the drawing board! 😬 *grumble grumble grumble*

📺 Watching - Every other week or so, I get together with a friend to watch some Star Trek. I introduced him to Trek via the Kelvin Timeline movies (screened in a theater thanks to a local group!), then started Discovery until we hit the crossover with Strange New Worlds/time jump, watched SNW until just before we hit the crossover with Lower Decks, watched some “best of” the Cerritos, then back to SNW for that crossover until we ran out of episodes, watched some more random Lower Decks for teh lulz, and now we are back to the future with Disco, wherein we just finally reconnected with what remains of the Federation. If you have a nerd who is very into history, deep lore, and/or Trek-curious, I highly recommend this modern approach to introducing them to the franchise, then letting them dable in earlier series (especially DS9, if they are into political history) at their own pace.

🎵 Listening - While I haven’t listened to Vol 1, The Long Ones Vol 2 by Paul Mallatratt is a rather good 3-track album. I really enjoy a solid noir offering and this one has long, immersive tracks. It feels like driving around a beautiful and broken city at night, with barely any other cars on the road.

👕 Wearing - I was really thankful last week was full-on hoodie weather again. Ain’t nothing as comfortable as your favourite ratty, lived in hoodie, and my nervous system needed that extra comfort/security to help reset. Mine (the hoodie, not my nervous system) is an out-of-print design so I won’t bother with any links, but I know you know what I’m talking about.

What a way to close out June! I’m SO glad I could turn this month around, if only for a day. And, not for nothing, I’m incredibly thankful to my fans and supporters for all your patience while this month put me through the wringer. It’s never fun to be unable to work, especially when you’re 100% freelance, but gosh darn is it important to not rush recovery from illness or injury! After spending so much of my life in cycles of illness thanks to the retail grind and lack of support, being able to get the rest I need—allowing myself to engage in that rest—makes a riiidiculous difference in how one feels coming out the other side of things. And how.

Next up, July! Onward and upward? Or, a quote I often recall from the Netflix Luke Cage series: “Never backward, always forward. Always.” BUT! I just looked it up to make sure I was remembering it accurately, and I had completely forgotten Luke’s personalized version of that motto: “Sometimes backward, to move forward. Always.” I love that tiny shift.

xox,