Rynling R&D

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The theme of this week was executive function disorder. I tried every trick in my ADHD arsenal to overcome it, but alas. The only thing that will fix me is the end of this horrible winter.

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Philadelphia city services completely ceased functioning during the snowstorm two weekends ago, so I spent most of my daylight free time this week shoveling snow and breaking up ice patches. I have nothing but love for my neighbors, but I kind of want to [redacted] City Hall at the moment. All this manual labor does make me feel like a lumberjack, though.

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I’m still suffering from the cold and ice, but the warmth I see on social media is heartening. It’s always so nice to watch people standing up for each other, supporting their communities, and putting art into the world. Despite everything!!

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This week I drove back to Philly and returned to the warm embrace of my beloved sunlamp. I recently saw a post on Tumblr (or maybe Bluesky?) whose author was like, “Between my plants and my humidifier and my sunlamp, I realized that I’m becoming a lizard.” And honestly, no shame in that. I hope everyone reading this is staying warm and living their best and choicest terrarium life.

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I’m still taking it easy, but this week I did all my new year’s cleaning, which was cathartic. I also backed up my files on an external hard drive, and then I made a backup of the backup. This will not halt the inexorable creep of entropy, but it’s good for my peace of mind.

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Happy winter solstice! May all your nights be filled with stars, and best wishes for brighter and warmer days to come. 🌟🌿

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It's been a tough semester, but I managed to make it through. I’m looking forward to having a few weeks to do fuck-all while I take the space I need to tackle a few deadlines and then think about what I’m doing and where I’d like to go in the future.

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Oh man. It’s been a week. I need a vacation.

I’m having a time of it, but I hope good things happen to everyone reading this. ☕

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The sudden decrease in daylight hours really fucked me (and not in a fun way) this week. I always feel betrayed when this happens, because it sucks and I hate it. I’m doing my best to stay active and not enter hibernation mode, but it’s a struggle. I can totally understand why people used to perform blood sacrifices to bring back the sun.

However! Beloathed war profiteer Dick Cheny is down 🦀🦀🦀 and Zohran Mamdani won the NYC mayoral race by a huge margin despite months of being confronted with some of the most unhinged public Islamophobia I’ve seen in years. Here in Pennsylvania, we managed to retain a roster of Democratic judges who’ve pledged to protect abortion rights. And a new Godzilla movie was announced. So it’s not all darkness.

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Perhaps ironically, so much of the year is Halloween for me that actual Halloween week feels somewhat anticlimactic. I will read gothic novels and play indie horror games as usual.

However! This year I’ve been invited to my first Halloween house party since Covid, and it’s “crow party” themed, meaning that everyone dresses all in black and brings shiny trinkets to trade. Because I don’t really own anything besides books, I’m bringing a few dark fantasy graphic novels (like Bowling with Corpses and Helen of Wyndhorn), and I hope their future readers love them as much as I do.