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Worst week of the year ๐Ÿ’”

As a single guy, I am no fan of Valentinesโ€™ Day. We are now seven weeks into winter, often with a gray haze and clouds all around. Itโ€™s cold, Iโ€™m stuck inside in my small little apartment that is rarely warm in part because I donโ€™t like paying for the heat, and in part because itโ€™s drafty and falling apart. Despite the foam I put around the door, one of the days itโ€™s going to completely fall apart again. The vinyl windows have lost their seal, and the walls donโ€™t line up with the foundation, allowing air to leak in freely on this blustery morning.

I got the news that I am likely losing my home 16 years this week, with the landlord selling the building. A place Iโ€™ve gotten to know so well, with many in-perfections but also the niceties of living somewhere that is walk-able and bikable, with good public transportation. I have to start the home search, be it an another apartment or buying a house. But I donโ€™t want to move or give up on the life Iโ€™ve come to love โ€” biking to work, walking down to the library, weekends in the wilderness.

My heart is so broken to be losing my apartment in the coming months. But itโ€™s also tough to be so alone, in what often seems like the bleakest days of winter, before the dawn of spring. The nights are getting shorter, but not by much, and the mercury slightly warmer. Things will get better soon, but itโ€™s so bleak right now. I have much to look forward to after this period of darkness.

How to recycle in rural Iowa

If I lived in rural Iowa ๐Ÿ„ and got a mailer from one of the democrats promoting gun control ๐Ÿ”ซ Iโ€™d probably save itโ€ฆ

  1. And use it to toss behind the cows in the barn for bedding and absorbing up the pee and poop to be later spread with the manure spreader, ๐Ÿฎ or maybeโ€ฆ
  2. Toss it out in the hog barn, let the hogs root around in it, shredding it into the mud and muck, ๐Ÿท or maybeโ€ฆ
  3. Tape it up to an old politicianโ€™s lawn signs, use it for patterning your shotgun or plinking with your 22, ๐Ÿ”ซ and then maybeโ€ฆ
  4. Save it for using to light the farm garbage pit. Dip it diesel or old motor oil, light it up, drop it in the pit. Let it burn! ๐Ÿ”ฅ

Now thatโ€™s what I call recycling, โ™ป although honestly most political mailers I get these days really donโ€™t compost well ๐Ÿฅ or even burn well ๐Ÿš’ because they are glossy, coated with plastic and contain a lot of clay in the paper mix. ๐Ÿค”Many urban paper programs take them for recycling but even then I doubt theyโ€™re very good for recovery.