It is now no longer my birthday, even in an ambiguous “when is her birthday…?” sense. I had a really really nice extended weekend of doing lots of Stuff with various Friends, and then I took a solid day of downtime to myself to decompress a bit. Thanks to everyone who did celebrate with me online (or in person!), sending messages and tips and presents. I do feel like I made the most of it, considering the day itself didn’t exist.

As much as I really enjoy going out a few days in a row as a treat… oof, I am out of practice. That kind of thing was a lot easier for me back pre-pandemic when I worked a normal brick-and-mortar job and was desensitized to being social in very active environments (though, yes, I’d get home and crash HARD from sensory/social overload). Now, however, I am a mysterious hermit who rarely leaves her tower, venturing out into the world maybe once a week… twice a week since I started going to the gym again. Being social is its own kind of muscle to train and I don’t think the extroverts realize how much literal effort it takes.

These days I am a big fan of, as they say, enjoying my rent. While it’s true my apartment has been in a semi-permanent state of disorganized chaos since early January due to frequent and yet somehow also delayed maintenance visits, parts of it are still a Good and Cozy space (okay so it’s mostly my bed and my desk area). My routine shifts through the seasons, spending the mornings here or the afternoons there to maximize The Vibes—and the natural light. And now we are at the tail end of a very tepid winter here in the Pacific Northwest, and the light is changing again and I’m looking around thinking… what’s my next zone of activity? What can I do to make it cozier? More cozy but also… more efficient, because I do not think functionality needs to come at the cost of comfort. If it’s calming for everything to have its Place… then my autistic personification of inanimate objects would like to make sure those Places are also cozy.

This week I’m bringing you lots of Good Links and Sticky Notes, which I would have done last week but it takes An Amount of time to round up and format all those links for the newsletter, and this week I have the time. Something to look forward to if you’re brave enough to scroll through the middle part of this email. 😉

☑️ Done and Done - Went to a really tasty buffet-style hot pot for a birthday dinner, followed by tasty tacos for birthday lunch the next day (I ate so good this year). Enjoyed (/s) a visit from maintenance that was posted as “repair/replace” but the head maintenance guy just said, “I can’t do anything for this so we’ll have to arrange for a contractor” (now in month 3 of my water heater not working properly). Broke one of my favourite mugs; made a rather tasty bean and ham soup from scratch. Looked at the moon… but slept through the lunar eclipse. Otherwise it was a lot of the usual such and such, with a side of dysfunctional nervous system that put me on more bed rest than I really wanted to do this week.

❌ Didn’t Do It - I had teased in last week’s newsletter that I was going to try to do a Twitch stream for my birthday… first it was going to be on Friday but that potential got interrupted so then I was like, okay Sunday, but then by Sunday I was toooo tired. Sorry to those who were interested in chatting! Soon, I hope. Then yesterday I was looking forward to a late Lunar New Year parade, but the event itself was kind of mid and not well communicated about what was happening when, so instead of standing around bored for two hours waiting for the actual parade, I just went home. The JOMO (Joy of Missing Out) vibes are strong this year.

📋 Coming up - Starting the week off with a benefit cabaret for a local sex work advocacy group. Then it should be a normal mix of gym, work, gym, sleep, work, edit, rinse, repeat. Hoping to dedicate at least one day to my delayed February goal of reorganizing my open wardrobe. Some scheduled plant maintenance time later in the week.

With so much change on the horizon, so many plots in motion, I keep having to remind myself to slow down. I’m not a fast-paced individual, I’ve never been impulsive or spontaneous. Every decision ends up weighed carefully against the next, against the future. Sometimes that’s good and necessary, sometimes I worry I miss out on the part of life that can only be accessed by recklessness.

Yet—much like anyone, I should think—I have been plenty reckless with many of my years. And I’d like to think that, far enough removed from said recklessness, I have achieved a certain amount of clarity through hindsight. I have made enough bad decisions for a lifetime. Enough to know what I want now… and what I don’t.

So I have to remind myself, when I feel that familiar itch of excitement to rush ahead, that I know exactly what I’m doing, and I know exactly what I want, and none of that will be aided by impetuousness now. Patience, patience.

The draw to indulge is always strong, but is it beneficial? Rarely. And it feels like society is trained to indulge “as a treat”—buy the thing, stay out late, eat the extra slice, you deserve it. But how often do you have a friend or confident remind you to take your time? to measure the ramifications against the allure? We’re all stuck in this late-stage capitalistic hellscape and it so awful that we have to find those comforts; it tells us do whatever we want, as long as we deserve it. And why wouldn’t we?

But oh, the allure of the payoff…! The one you worked for, grew into, crafted for yourself to be exactly what you wanted… but only once you were ready for it. Of course you want it sooner, want it now, but that’s never the way these things work. All good things in due time.

As much as I do think I deserve comfort, deserve ease, those aren’t things that can just be handed to me by another. They aren’t available for delivery. I think once you understand that, you are closer to understanding that the work is its own reward; a dedication to the self, to the future benefits to be reaped. Small pleasures in the mix, yes, as long as they do not impact the greater body of work. But once you know what you truly want… there can be no justification of distraction. One simply must do the work to obtain it.

📕 Reading - Well y’all, it’s finally happened. I’ve taken my first steps into the fantastical realm of the romantasy genre, fresh on the heals of last week’s announcement that Book 6 of the core Acotar series comes out at the end of October (and Book 7 right around the corner in January 2027). Idk why, beyond… why not? I was in between books anyway and hadn’t settled on what to read next, and reading five books in a series to catch up before the next release is something I haven’t done since high school. Thusly, I picked up the Kindle edition of A Court of Thorns and Roses (aff link). I honestly have no idea what I’ll think of the series, but I promise to update you with any relevant Opinions as this perhaps ill-adviced reading adventure progresses.

📺 Watching - I didn’t make enough time for the second half of Bridgerton season 4 this week, watching only two episodes (5 and 6) before I had to move on to other stuff. And uhhh wow/oof. 😳 I think I was glad I had whiskey for this viewing instead of ice cream. Can’t wait to finish that up ASAP!

🎵 Listening - I finally remembered to purchase my cart of music this past Bandcamp Friday, and while I won’t get into listing all the albums I picked up (you can always peep my full BC Collection here) I will highlight Death And Life And All That Lays In Between by Willow Tea. The album is not as sad as the title may sound, but instead feels like a quiet, contemplative stroll through a chill, damp hillside at dusk, a low fog rolling in as night settles across the land, leaving you alone with your somber thoughts.

☕ Drinking - I was gifted a matcha preparation set (aff link) for my birthday, so I immediately picked up a thing of Oatly Barista Lovers to make a latte with the matcha powder someone gave me last year. Admittedly, I am absolutely one of Those Guys when it comes to warm beverage prep, preferring slow analog processes over convenience, so I’m rather excited to have a new tool in my arsenal. Someone remind me to do a breakdown of my Beverage Prep Area some time.

👾 Gaming - The current season of Diablo IV, Season of Divine Intervention, is wrapping up, and inasmuch as I recognize that the new Paladin class is overpowered, it’s some of the most fun I’ve had since the game first launched. It’s also the furthest I’ve made it in a season, completing all the primary objectives (and missing out on just a few of the more advanced tasks, such as killing a total of 6,666 Elite Demons—I only made it to 4,102, and Paragon level 244). The new season, Season of Slaughter, launches this coming Wednesday, so perhaps I will use that as reason to finally get my Twitch channel active again? (No promises! 😅) Also if you’ve been curious about the Paladin class, they’ll be free to play up to level 25.

⚔️ Quick shout-out to Highlander (1986) on celebrating 40 years of pure cult movie magic! Priscilla Page’s writing on cinema never miss, and I enjoyed her spoiler-rich deep dive into the original Highlander movie, published 2024. Here we are, born (forty years ago) to be kings…

🍷 A title that gets straight to the point: The Lost Art of Sharing a Bottle. I think it’s only been twice in my life that I’ve had the opportunity to share a bottle of wine with a friend in a public restaurant setting (vs. the many times I’ve shared 2-3 bottles or perhaps most of a box of wine with a friend or five in a private setting lol). The way I long for a long, slow, enthusiastic conversation with a dear friend over the poshest of inebriants! Bring back ordering a bottle for the table please! But on the other hand…

🌞 …I’d really love for more adults to move away from social outings being based around drinking alcohol at night. Because like many other millennials of the elder variety, I love good sleep hygiene, and sometimes I just don’t have the wherewithal for dinner dates that draw out into the wee hours. Add in the fact that I am self-employed and have a very flexible schedule, I’m excited by the trend of having a daylife. The article seems to focus on daytime-based fitness classes for some reason, but there are so many (less sweaty) daywalker ways to be social! Let’s go out for lunch! Meet for coffee… before noon! Maybe sit down for Happy Hour when it starts. Good lord, can we please run errands together?!

💬 One of the most frustrating things about being not just Very Online, but of using social media for Genuine Work Reasons, is the loss of joy one used to experience before we were tethered to these algorithmic platforms as a requirement for existing. The freedom of posting, unnamed and unknown, into the void. Now we are pushed to optimize, thread, hashtag, and keyword minimax the character count of our social(?) interactions. But maybe there’s hope. Maybe, if we are feeling perhaps nihilistic enough about maintaining the legitimacy of a “professional” persona, we can go back… or perhaps, move forward, by using social media the same way manga authors write about their week. So what if the post only gets 6 likes? We could be free, again.

🤖 I know a good chunk of fellow millennials (and, to a degree, Gen Xers) will understand how surreal it has been to grow up in an era pre-digital everything, present for the birth and subsequent integration of the public access Internet into our daily lives. I’m talking about anyone who pocketed a Nokia well before their first iPhone. And now here we are in an age of LLMs and genAI being forcibly attached to all our Internets, in a way that the most youthful of youths doesn’t think to question. But, oh, god, are we really doing this? Do we really not have a say in the matter? What happens if… when… we give in? We are, once again, living in the inflection point. (source: blog author Brittany Ellich, via Bluesky)

🔴 Speaking of the old Internet… as much as I miss good ol’ Google Reader, admittedly I was downright addicted to maintaining it. Checking the reader, clearing out all the unread articles… sometimes merely bookmarking them or sorting them into a “Read Later” folder just to get that Unread count down. I miss the app… not the obligation. Queue the nouveau term “Phantom Obligation - noun, the guilt you feel for something no one asked you to do.” This detailed article of the same name asks why feed readers look like email clients, and what that does to our psyche, our enjoyment, of reading. See also: why I turn off badge notifications for almost all the damn apps on my phone.

🖥️ A one-two punch for the hardware nerds and PC modding enthusiasts. First, the right hook: the accurately and relatably titled I’m Tired Of These Useless Jackasses Making The Computer Expensive, which was linked with the pull quote, “The tech oligarchs pushing AI do not care if you can afford a computer, because they do not truly love the computer.” And I think that is the crux of the issue: these people don’t see any problem with the scarcity their bubble has created, because they’re not the sort who would be impacted by it anyway. It’s like not caring about climate change because you don’t personally live in an actively-melting/flooding arctic environment (which, uh, these same people obviously also don’t care about). Next, the left uppercut: Western Digital and Seagate have (almost?) completely sold their production quotas for 2026. So even your old school spinning hard drive is now an endangered species. I think Abbey Esparza danced around part of the problem here: previous to the AI/LLM bubble, computer hardware was so, SO affordable… that cloud storage companies were at risk of becoming obsolete for your standard computer enthusiast. I have an empty case and I must build a NAS! Alas. Godspeed, my fellow PC nerds.

I know it feels like spring is surely just around the corner… but I’m not holding my breath. While the PNW seems to have escaped the snow, I wouldn’t be surprised if a sudden hard freeze sneaks in before April. Tread cautiously, those of you with gardens and flower beds!

Good luck out there this week. I’m trying to find a reasonable middle ground between awareness and functionality; sadly the two don’t seem to overlap much these days. Same for you? Probably the same for a lot of people. But one week at a time, one day, one hour. We’ll get there.

xox,