Arctic Freeze

The 100-yard electrical relay to the chickens' water has failed again. The extension cords are buried beneath a foot and a half of snow, and I'm not even going to fantasize about digging them out because that would be impossible. I'm just gonna have to haul fresh water out to the chickens every day and hope they can drink enough in the 20 minutes or so before that water freezes—the temps at night have been going down to -7°F (real feel: -15°F) and barely graze 20°F (real feel: 5°F) during the day—not to die of thirst.

I don't know what else to do.

This Arctic front has been brutal. My share of the electric & heating oil bills this month came to $500, and honestly? I don't know how I am gonna pay it. I suppose since I will be out of here come spring (please, please, please, Universe), the smart thing would be to tell Icky to take it out of the rental deposit. I mean, there are certainly many folk I could plead my story to who would be happy to help me out, I suspect, but how humiliating is that? Come rescue me! I can't take care of myself!

If Brian were alive, this would not be an issue. He would give me the money & tell me to shut up when I tried to thank him.

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In more amusing news, Facebook has decided to give me a professional account because many, many years ago, when I first signed up for FB, I facetiously gave my profession as "Cat News Aggregator" and started a regular posting feature called "Today's Exciting Cat News." Apparently, that little daily posting feature attracts some threshold number of eyeballs. An FB professional account gives one access to all sorts of interesting user-tracking info.

And my Substack attracts more (free) subscribers every day, though it's a long way away from being monetizable.

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Life is just very stressful right now. A real slog. I remind myself that it won't be that way forever, but one thing about me: I live very fully in the present tense; in fact, Ichabod told me once I was the most existential person he had ever known. When things suck, it's very hard for me to envision a future point in which things will not suck, and that renders mobilizing future options for non-suckitude solely an intellectual exercise. Emotionally, I just want to curl up somewhere & cry.