Mid-June fragments

An early morning walk. The car dashboard reads 4°C. The ridiculous luxury of heated seats, a heated steering wheel, insulated coats, and woolen headwear.

A happy old dog bounding through wet grass. Leaves slicing the sunlight, creating horizontal stripes in the mist.

I slip my hand into Jesse’s pocket, threading my fingers between his. The look he gives me makes my stomach do backflips. I’m suddenly at the start of it all with him: bowled over by new, intense love. (Are you even real?)

*CLICKBAIT TITLE!!

I’m a garbage writer. It used to bother me a lot, but doesn’t anymore. I used to think I didn’t deserve to post anything publicly because I’m just not very good at the kind of writing I want to be good at.

But the proliferation of AI slop is changing how I feel about it.

“However bad a writer you think you are, you are not worse than AI.”

Numb at the Lodge: If you let AI do your writing, I will come to your house and kill you

Being bad at something – but still authentic – suddenly feels really fucking good instead of embarrassing. Hell, everything I write might be a piece of shit, but at least it’s a real piece of shit. I don’t give a fuck if it stinks. Use a leaf to scrape it off your shoe or something.

I’ve just started the final book in the Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy (more commonly known as the Three Body Problem trilogy, I think?).

The pacing is perfect. I keep hitting parts where I start thinking oh no, it’s moving too slowly or oh no, we’re getting a little too in the weeds here and almost instantly the story pivots or picks up the pace – and I’m hooked again.

I ordered hard copies of all three books after finishing the first one on my phone, but I’ve continued to plough through it digitally. Phone always with me. Phone don’t need reading light in the dark. Phone let me read anywhere, anytime. Phone have good red shift for late-night reading. Me read on phone. P h o n e

It’s the end of a bike ride. There’s a final (small, but hard for me) hill climb.

I’m on a new bike, still getting used to it, and I don’t get enough momentum to make the climb easily. I drop to the lowest gear, stand up, and push hard. To get up, I have to overtake a young couple with a pram, and as I pass them, I say:

my [panting] fucking [panting] god [panting] I fucking [panting] hate [panting] this

and in response, she yells:

KEEP GOING, YOU’RE DOING AMAZING!

and suddenly, I’m a triathlete. I’m an Olympic gold medalist. I have quads of steel and glutes that never quit.

I power over the little tiny hill and coast down the other side, triumphant, boosted by a random woman’s encouragement.

#womensupportingwomen

On May 29th, Boards of Canada released their first new album in 13 years, and two and a half weeks later, I’m still reeling.

I need to preface the rest of this section with a few important clarifications:

• Be warned: I get real weird about this.

• I’m not a Boards of Canada superfan. I discovered them via their previous album, Tomorrow’s Harvest, which I love deeply but didn’t think too hard about at the time. It was one of several albums that became the soundtrack to the early years of my relationship with Jesse. It’s unsettling, cinematic, and gorgeously bleak.

• Tomorrow’s Harvest got me listening to their older albums, which are all equally brilliant. Their entire discography is worth everyone’s attention.

• Art is fucking subjective!

• I’ve discovered that Boards of Canada superfans are extremely into analyzing every single part of every single track, and I respect the game. I get it. But that’s not what I’m doing here, so I’ll probably get some technical stuff wrong. Talk to my lawyer about it or whatever.

Okay.

It’s been a long time since I’ve hit play on a new album and been bodied the way I’ve been bodied by Inferno. That’s partly my fault: I know loads of amazing new music is being released all the time, but I’m a fairly heavy Spotify user, and Spotify has cornered me into a lot of repetitive listening (maybe it’s the ADHD, I dunno). To b e fair, we’ve also been listening to a lot of Soma.fm lately, but mostly as background music around the house.

Anyway:

There are certain topics I cannot get enough of. The kind of topics that, if brought up in casual conversation, turn me into a weird little freak – a person I occasionally fail to recognize (or like). Experts in these fields hate talking to me, because I will not stop asking them questions. Experts and non-experts alike probably want to change the topic after ten minutes of engaging with me. I’m enthusiastic, uneducated, and unable to shut the fuck up.

These topics are (in VERY broad terms): life, death, religion, science, philosophy, space, and the general, apparent self-destruction of our species. Start a conversation about any of them and I’m levitating from pure joy. Start a conversation about the intersection of any of them, and I’m not just levitating – I’m omnipotent, glowing, existing in multiple dimensions (in other words: expired, in heaven).

At first, I couldn’t figure out why Inferno had its claws in me. Why this felt like something completely new – not just made for me, but made for me right now.

Somehow, before I tuned into any of the lyrics or vocal samples, it seemed to be the first piece of music that I’ve listened to in years that managed to skillfully convey these themes musically – using unexpected chord progressions, dissonance, distortions, soundscapes, basslines, and beats.

And once I started actually tuning in to the words, I was a fucking goner. Hooked. Greedy. Seen, even.

Existential angst often begs for distraction – the light and fluffies to counter the horrors. And I’ve gotten good at happy distractions. Birds, nature, friends, dancing. It’s all necessary to survive here without losing our minds.

But Inferno opened a silk-lined sonic portal into the horrors, forcing me to make eye contact with Leviathan. It facilitated bottomless personal meditations on our species’ poetic collapse.

It reminded me of who I am, what I care most about, what I find beautiful – and that walking in the shadows (and facing the horrors) is as important to me as basking in the sunlight.

One afternoon, on my fourth or fifth listen, I was riding the train, phone tucked away, watching passing clouds and graffiti.

Suddenly, it was 2012 again. I was listening to something that felt new, yet nostalgic. The wider world was scary, but my world was small, and I was right in its center. Anything was possible, as long as it didn’t cost more than my next paycheck. I was swimming in feelings for someone new, then drowning in the best kind of fear: the fear of being seen for exactly who I was, and being loved anyway – shadows and all.

…so anyway yeah it’s a pretty good album, eh

Our cats are sticklers for routine, but they also change their routines periodically. They’ll decide on daytime and nighttime sleeping spots, stick with them religiously for a month or two, then have an argument and suddenly change everything.

Now that the weather is colder, Odo’s current routine is:

• Climb into our bed between 2am and 4am

• Wake both of us up by walking across our heads and meowing (one or the other would suffice but he’s nothing if not thorough)

• Wait for one of us to put our arm in the correct position (we’re still figuring this out)

• Spend 20 minutes deciding on the correct orientation for his body (he’s still figuring this out)

• Lie down

• Receive belly rubs

• Purr like a helicopter until passing out

I sometimes find it hard to fall asleep after waking up, but the most potent sleep aid I’ve ever discovered is the sound of a cat purring, so this arrangement is working fine right now.

Thanks for reading my not-AI-generated slop about cats, music, and whatever else.

Here are two not-AI-generated pieces that are way better than anything I can write and that I think most of you will enjoy:

I got you: Numb at the Lodge: Born in the wrong generation

“At some point the race ends, but no one tells the runners. The crowd goes home. The vendors close their little stalls. The king retires behind obscene curtains. The stadium lights hum over empty seats. Still the runners continue, circling and circling, long after victory and defeat have stopped meaning anything at all.

This, basically, is LinkedIn.”

The Shadowed Archive: WINNING FOR LOSERS

No more photos this time. Sorry/you’re welcome.

It’s late, I’m tired, and if you’re still reading this…

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…I love you!