It’s not hopeless — but it carries history on its back, and history is heavy.

I like this girl, Janie. She is a detective in Death Valley.

Well, she’s Detective Sergeant Janie Mallowan, a young, ambitious cop in a small South Wales police team, to put it accurately.

Not only is she dedicated to her duties, she is a bit obsessed. Her obsession partly comes from grieving the loss of her best friend. It has turned to a coping mechanism for her mental state. But it is also part of who she is. It’s a fuel, kind of.

She loves to get a promotion, and she would do anything legal, and ethical, to have that come true.

She’s sharp, but flubs social cues, blurts comments, and wears her emotions just enough that she’s relatable instead of polished and dull. That’s actually why Dua Lipa disinterests me (and Taylor Swift, and Justin Bieber, for another reason, and Mariah Kerry, and NSYNC, Jonas Brothers, Cold Play, and many others.)

Her energy is strange, and resonates well with mine. Strange in a good way. I get you, girl.

Her lack of filter and quirky delivery are sources of comedy, which makes her fun to watch. She makes you laugh with her, not at her. She just says things out loud in perfect honety.

She has real pain and ambition — that mix of vulnerability and competence. And as funny as it sounds, John Chapel resonates well with her, as a mentor, father, possibly a little grand father, and a male figure she never had.

That’s why I enjoy that show. It’s not that the storyline is special. It’s Janie.

One of the peculiar things about listening to podcasts while cooking or making crafts is that, because you can’t easily change the episode, you end up listening all the way to the end.

Did you know there’s a website called Murderpedia?! It lists killers, complete with their personal details and the murders they committed.

How do I know this? From an Australian podcast broadcast out of Adelaide. It’s called Weird Crap in Australia.

I thought by “weird crap” it meant stuff that seems strange, new, or interesting to the rest of the world, but is normal for Australians. Like people having kangaroo suits at home and using them to rescue kangaroo babies.

That kind of thinking is what got me listening to this podcast, and now I know things about Australia’s 1960s and 70s serial killers that even Australian documentaries never mentioned.

I love the months of December, January, February, and March. I also love November—if it’s somewhere truly cold, like Maine or Canada, or up in the far reaches of Europe around the Baltics, Caucasus, or anywhere with a spirit like the Balkans. Cold air calms my head. It soothes my nerves, and—more importantly—it makes my brain work better. My cheeks turn redder, my face looks lively again, flushed as if I’ve put on makeup; the pale of my skin fills with colour.

I don’t like summer here. I don’t like spring or autumn either. My face gets puffy. I gain weight. You have no idea how hard it was to bring my weight down. Feeling agile in warm weather is almost impossible for me. I get dizzy constantly, my vision goes off, and all I want is to put ice on my head and sleep.

Sea water is good—sure—but we’re not very close to it. I like cold water. Places like Baja California, San Diego, or Hawaii make sense to me only if you go for a week or two every couple of months: swim, cleanse your body in the sea, refresh your skin, enjoy the sun, eat well—and then return home to a cool climate.

We haven’t been to Peru yet, so I don’t know what it’s like. Maybe it’s wonderfully cool. It doesn’t matter that it’s on the equator. What matters is good sun—and cold air.

Another joy of living in cold places like New England, the UK, Argentina, the Baltics, or Canada’s East and West Coasts is that you can actually see the seasons change. And more importantly, you can spend much longer walking outside in nothing more than a light shirt and thin trousers.

The ponds freeze over. River water turns wild at first, then grows quieter, because everything freezes. Sparrows sing less—but still, once or twice a day, they do sing. Everything goes silent. And the mind finally settles.

I’m not a heat person. I like warmth only for romantic trips or work travel. I’ve just started going out in minus five degrees Celsius wearing a T-shirt and light trousers. Yes, it’s cold—but it’s delicious. Afterwards I come home, take a hot shower, put on some cream, and everything is fine.

Even my husband is starting to like cold weather. He says it keeps his brain more alert. Maybe it’s time, in a while, to move north again. Somewhere cosy and lovely in New England. Or further north in California. And then travel—to warm places and cold places around the world.

It’s fun, isn’t it?!

I’m genuinely happy to have made it this far. I can hardly believe I survived—hardly believe I lived long enough to see myself after thirty.

Your thirties are that rare stretch of life where you still have youth and energy, but you also have experience—and wisdom. And when all of those come together, it’s only natural that life feels more beautiful.

Most importantly, in your thirties, the older you get, the fewer wrong crowds you attract. And that, too, is one of its quiet, underrated beauties.

“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.”

A famous quote by the ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu.

Found this on a tissue box we purchased a while ago.

People don’t say things in Madison. They hint. They passive-aggress. They smile while resenting you quietly.

Big coastal cities are loud about their damage.
Madison buries it under politeness and compost bins.

That’s creepier.

Yes, it’s liberal. Yes, it’s educated.
But scratch the surface and you’ll feel:

• social conformity
• moral quiet judgement
• unspoken rules you’re supposed to just know

If you don’t fit the “right” kind of progressive, the city subtly ejects you socially. No drama. Just cold air.

Madison’s vibe isn’t neutral. It’s muted.

Not calm.
Not peaceful.
Muted — like someone turned the volume down on life and lost the remote.

There’s an odd lack of edge. No grit, no chaos, no release valve. Everything feels managed. Curated. Approved.
That creates pressure. Humans need friction. Madison polishes it away.

You end up feeling like you’re the messy thing in the room.

The silence: not empty — watchful

This is the creepy bit.

Madison’s silence isn’t absence of noise; it’s absence of expression.

• Streets too quiet
• People moving efficiently, eyes forward
• Conversations that never quite land anywhere real

It’s the kind of silence that makes you lower your voice without knowing why.
Your body reads it as: don’t disturb the system.

That’s not peace. That’s compliance.

The people: pleasant, but… sealed

Most folks aren’t cruel. They’re just closed.

You’ll get:

• politeness without warmth
• friendliness without intimacy
• values without vulnerability

People here often live correctly rather than honestly.
They know the right language, the right opinions, the right rituals — but they don’t let you in.

So connection stays shallow. Repeatedly. Quietly. And that breeds loneliness even in rooms full of people.

If you’re emotionally tuned-in, your brain keeps pinging:

“Something’s being suppressed.”

You feel it in pauses that last too long.
In smiles that don’t reach the eyes.
In friendships that stall at “nice.”

It’s not hostile — which would be easier.
It’s withholding.

That’s exhausting.

Here it is, bluntly:

Don’t be too much. Don’t be too loud. Don’t disrupt the vibe.

But if you’re the kind of person who:

• feels deeply
• notices atmospheres
• wants real conversations

Then “don’t be too much” slowly turns into “don’t be yourself.”

And the city never says it out loud — it just goes quiet around you.

I am processing. Yes. But I’m not alone in this.

Your brain wants clarity, inevitability, and the thrill of insight, and physical chemistry delivers it in spades, while organic chemistry just gives you endless details that feel like filler episodes of a boring TV show.

Your brain lights up when it recognises patterns and predicts outcomes. Physical chemistry is basically pattern porn.

That explains a lot.

Organic chemistry? Mostly memorisation. Your brain goes, “Where’s the pattern? Where’s the payoff?”—and barely gets a reward.

Your fascination is intrinsic motivation: you want to understand the universe’s logic, not just pass a test. Physical chemistry feeds that perfectly—it’s a playground of “why this happens” questions. Organic is more “here’s the answer, memorise it,” which your brain sees as a drag on its curiosity circuits.

Physical chemistry gives you predictive power. You can see the outcome before it happens. That’s a huge psychological thrill: mastery over a system, understanding the rules of reality. Organic chemistry rarely gives that same sense of omniscience.

Yeah babe.

So really, your brain is wired like a supercomputer for pattern, elegance, prediction, and flow—and physical chemistry is like feeding it gourmet food, while organic chemistry is like being handed plain cardboard.

That explains why I mock organic and inorganic chemists internally. Even 90% of physical chemists are scams. They are rarely true ones. And they are usually broken.

Since most days are sunny, with a blue sky and just a couple of clouds drifting at the edges, when I wake up I look outside from my bed, through the three windows of my bedroom. Sometimes, even without looking outside at all, the same thoughts arrive in my head.

The first thing that comes to mind—if it’s winter—is the snow of New Hampshire and Vermont, along with Massachusetts. Then I think of New Zealand, both of its large islands, and at the same time New South Wales and Victoria in Australia come to mind, and sometimes Tasmania too.

And it’s curious how this repeats itself every single time.

I genuinely miss snow.

I want snow.