This morning, in an act of quiet rebellion, I slept until almost 9 am. This felt miraculous, considering I went to bed at 10 pm. Then I stayed in bed until ten again (am though), thinking. Thinking about my Substack Newsletter, my social media presence, my art, my life. No answers arrived, except for an idea for this blog.

I’ve struggled with sharing daily life on Instagram. It feels wrong. For me, at least. Millions of others seem to love it, but then again, millions also seem to crave something different. A shift. A quiet corner of the internet that doesn’t demand performance.

I’ve always loved my blog. It’s been over ten years, and honestly, I suspect I’m writing into a void. But there’s something relaxing about that, more so than writing for Instagram. A void doesn’t expect anything from you.

With the new year, I started doing morning pages again. Fifteen minutes of free writing. They say it unlocks something. I’m still waiting for the magic to kick in, but it has made me write more in general. So here I am, writing.

It’s also a strategy to keep me off my phone. I swore I’d quit doomscrolling this year. I did well for a while. Then, inevitably, it crept back in. But the relapse came with a realization: I enjoy blogs and newsletters more now. Also, podcasts. Maybe that’s next?

Eventually, at ten, I extracted myself from bed and went grocery shopping. I don’t enjoy it, but I also don’t enjoy an empty fridge, so there I was. I had planned to go for a small run (small because I’m recovering from my long back pain episode, and everything still feels small), but it was too late. The sun was out, which meant too many people. Avoid at all costs.

Instead, I bought ten kilos of clay and dragged them home. Exhausting, to say the least.

Then, the to-do list:

Work on paper sculpture

Prepare slab for tomorrow

Blog and Substack (on it)

Social media: box-shaped heart

Bonnie Korrekturen

At the bottom, a quote I liked:

"I want to look otherworldly and vaguely threatening."

I will probably never pull this off. But in my dreams, I am otherworldly and vaguely threatening.

Also on the list: freshen up the rat circus. I mentioned it on Instagram once, but not in detail.

Here’s the thing: last year, after traveling, I came home to find small holes in the garden. I was delighted. My garden is tiny, tucked away in an Innenhof, and animals rarely visit. So, I left out nuts. On Christmas, dried apples. I didn’t know who was eating them.

Then, a wildlife camera revealed the truth: rats.

In Vienna, you’re supposed to report them immediately, which I did. The landlord sent poison traps. But my studio window faces the garden, and I couldn’t sit there, creating outsider creatures, while actual outsider creatures died in front of me.

So I built a rat circus instead. Tin foil in the bushes (Tin fois moving in the wind is a sound you rarely hear and it's beautiful), wind wheels, anything shiny and unpredictable. I rotated strong smells—vinegar, turpentine, mint oil. And it worked. I haven’t seen a rat in weeks. Smart creatures.

I found a statistic about rats in cities: prevention is the most effective strategy, but most places don’t care enough. New Orleans does. Shoutout to New Orleans.

Maybe blogging is my own version of prevention. Against what? I don’t know. The slow erosion of attention? The pull of the infinite scroll? The way the internet makes everything feel like it has to be something? I’m not sure. But for now, I’ll keep writing. And I’ll keep changing the smells in the garden, just in case."