The heat has returned and with it, my motivation has evaporated.

My ceiling fan is out of commission until my apartment building has the funds(?) to fix the rotted portion of the roof surrounding one of my unit’s skylights(?!), which has been a problem since February (yikes). So right now all the hot air that fills the upstairs of my studio loft remains upstairs, all the cold air of the AC remains downstairs, and my (upstairs) work desk is miserable on any day over 85°F. Converted industrial loft life, baby! This may sound like a humble brag and, to be fair I do love my loft and have a certain amount of pride in it. But. Looks cool in the pictures until any amount of unusual/extreme weather occurs. Which, you know, is so rare these days. 🙃 At least the rent is cheap, right? *looks off camera* Hey the rent is still cheap, right…?

To be honest with you, I’ve been feeling pretty spread thin this week. Partially from the heat, though the perpetual onslaught of news is not helping. On top of that, there are so many people within my greater network who are dealing with sudden and severe trauma and I… can’t really do anything about it.

What a grotesque beast capitalism is to have reduced our ability to care for those we love to a CashApp transaction. A mutual aid share. A heart react on a post that reads, “here is my pain.” All amidst the day-to-day normalcy of our own lives! (I never was good at playing pretend.) But then that is the goal of capitalism, isn’t it? Reducing our humanity to a dollar sign. There’s no one to hold our hand through our struggles, so how about a little treat.

I have yet to acquire a Labubu, ostensibly the “little treat” of the moment (I do not know what a Dubai chocolate is and I do not care). I do think they’re kind of cute, but I don’t intend to seek one out. I find them vaguely ominous, of what I do not (yet) know. Congrats to this guy tho, I hope he is enjoying its unexpected turn of success!

So anyway. I’m really in my feels this week! No apologies for that though, I’m just saying. I’m merely acknowledging; I know we all know, all are. And life does continue, doesn’t it? A macabre kind of beauty, that.

Rest assured, the rest of this week’s email is less moody. I’ll try to maybe lean us into some more uplifting vibes, as a little treat, yeah? Yeah. 💜

☑️ Done and Done - Stepped away from working with my business coach for a while due to budgeting/need, decided to try out a different business accountability group for a while but idk. Slept 8+ hours TWICE. Had a nice phone call with my mom for her birthday. Did some digital file organization, some inbox organization, refined some notes, replied to emails. Worked a bunch on the H2H test site*. Continued to refine my workflow for working across so many platforms and devices.

🚫 Cancelled - My appointment at the DMV to get a RealID. I realized the day before that they now require a birth certificate issued after 2010?! So now I have to order that ($30) before I can get a RealID certification ($30) attached to a new State ID ($47). I’ve lived in this state my whole life and even I don’t have the “correct” papers; amazing. *Unrelated, I haven’t heard back from my contracted WP devs on my last reported issue and it’s making me anxious.

📋 Coming up - Enjoying some heavy AC and a newly remodeled IKEA show floor with the bestie, creating a buncha promo and then doing a buncha social media scheduling of said promo, doing a buncha admin work in general, starting to loosely plan for October/Halloween content(?!), maybe hit up a dance night, mostly try not to melt.

It feels like every few years, I hit a wall. Sometimes I merely walk up to the wall and I’m like, well, this is inconvenient but okay. Other times, I’m not paying attention to where I’m going, and I end up hurtling headfirst into the wall. (Burnout sucks, but autistic burnout?? BRUTAL.)

Every time, every wall, I learn something new. About myself, my work, the world. Each wall is different, so no one approach will work the same, but the lessons accumulate. Yet sometimes it’s… so easy, to just sit down at the wall. I’m tired. I don’t know, I don’t know. Why won’t someone just tell me how to get over this wall? I don’t know!

It’s so easy to sit down and wait for answers, wait for someone else’s explanation to save you, someone else’s strength to lift you over that wall. And sometimes, yes, there’s a community at hand, a perfectly-timed power-up or resource to give you a boost, or to help you land safely on the other side. But they can’t do all the work, that’s not their responsibility. It’s yours; it’s mine. And it’s so hard to be in those moments sometimes. Other people are already on the other side of the wall, if only I could figure out how to get over it.

I know that for me, momentum can be key. A running start, if you will. Maybe just get some distance to gauge the best approach. But I’ve learned that simply standing at the base of a wall and looking up and saying, “I don’t know?”… it won’t get me anywhere. It’s okay to take that time to ponder the challenge. It’s okay to admit to yourself that you don’t know how to tackle this particular wall. But eventually, you have to try.

Nobody’s coming to save me, to pull me over these walls. And perhaps the most brutal truth I’ve learned, from wall after wall, is that they didn’t just appear. I put them there. I built them. These are my walls. But in that, too, the best lesson: if I built them, I can also tear them down.

I’ve hit a point with this newsletter that I have a lot of half-drafts, and a lot of ideas, but I’m not sure what you want to hear about. And I know it’s “whatever you feel like talking about, Merrick!” (and thank you for that open-ended freedom!) but also… what DO you want to hear about? What are you enjoying reading and getting insight on?

I’m including a little poll below to gauge which of my rotating sections folks are enjoying the most, which will help me know what to prioritize from my drafts folder. But also… send me your quessstionnssss! Or like, maybe not even a question, but a theme or concept you’d like me to talk about. Could be about my own work and creative process, about the adult industry at large, about business management…? C’monnn, I know you’re curious! The time to ask is now! And, a little bit of input/direction would really help me out. 💜

🎬 Watching - The Intern (2016) was delightful and heartwarming. De Niro and Hathaway were a great pairing in this easy flick that was obviously inspired by Sophia Amoruso’s NastyGal/#girlboss era (but without the bankruptcy lol). Also I just love old people and think we could be better about recognizing the relevancy of their experience even in modern tech-fueled environments.

🎵 Listening - I’ve been in YouTube a lot lately, “watching” podcasts and long mixes on my smart tv when I’m downstairs avoiding the heat of my desk. I was looking for some good beats, something with a bit more energy than lofi, and came across this mix of Japanese trap & bass. It’s perfect for energized brain time or doing chores, cooking, etc. If this is a little too much for you or you’d like something a bit more traditional but just as energetic, Yoshida Kyodai have a couple albums up on Bandcamp and are worth seeking out more of.

👾 Gaming - Did some more play-testing of a secret game that’s still in beta. More content has been added and it’s beginning to gather steam and lean into the vibes I’ve come to expect from this particular game designer (developer?).

🍨 Eating - Last week I mentioned I got a free pint of Oatly dairy-free ice cream from my grocers. Well, I ate it! And it was… okay? Not great, like, wow this is actually really good! kind of great. But it was serviceable! The chocolate bits were a little chalky, but otherwise the flavor and texture were good. Ben & Jerry’s remains my preferred brand for dairy-free ice cream, but hey, this pint was free and I’m definitely not complaining!

☕ Drinking - I continue to enjoy Atlas Coffee Club, from which I received my second shipment this past week. This roast is from India and I’m positively smitten with the bag design. This is perhaps the first coffee bean I can recall not enjoying either iced nor with creamer, just straight up black. Yes, even in the heat, I’m serving up a hot cuppa! (If you want to try a subscription and there’s no active promo on the site, lmk and I’ll get you my code for $10 off your first month.)

💵 This is a long and rambling read but oh gosh is it a fun one: The Strip Club Did Indeed Make Me Bonkers! I have recently fallen in love (in a respectful parasocial way) with the author, Ismatu Gwendolyn (links to IG). This particular writing is about money. The philosophy of money. And honey, ain’t no philosopher like a stripper with clear eyes and an open heart.

🕹️ Speaking of indie games, the small-but-mighty game dev studio Panic is having a sale on Steam and they do. not. miss. You might know them for their cult sleeper hit Untitled Goose Game, but Time Flies is also great and fun at parties, and I’m keen to check out their new game, Herdling!

🌐 Do you have a Now page on your website? As someone who’s done a lot of seemingly disparate things, and lived a few lives, this kind of “📍I am here” review makes sense to me. I’m intrigued, and may even remember to implement this (maybe). Then there’s also Someday pages, which, yes yes very whimsical, but. I feel like these could just as easily be a blog post? Or are we so far gone from blogging that everything must have its own page?

🙄 I’ll probably write more about this sometime, but for now, a mini lil Bluesky thinking-out-loud thread about not always being sure how to navigate being a sex worker entering and moving through non-sex work professional spaces:

🧝‍♂️ This past week, one of the all-time bangers of the Internet turned 20 (yuuuup. 20 YEARS. Yes, we are that old, so sorry.)

I don’t know, y’all, some weeks just have a lot of feelings in em! Even when they aren’t based on our own experiences, we still experience them. I definitely don’t want to avoid this part of my own humanity, but I still need to keep going, keep working. It’s hard to be always “on”, always entertaining in the current climate. But, I have plenty of administrative busywork to keep me focused/distracted/productive while also leaving room to feel my feelings about any and all of it.

And then I take a break and play some video games. Or watch a silly movie. Go out with a friend. Touch some grass… sometimes metaphorically. Sometimes literally.

The trick is to just keep showing up. In your community, and for your community. And remember that they’re there for you, too. I’ll see you next week.

xox,