the most positive development in my life as a hater
delightful run of texts with e about AI after she sent me a link to colin meloy's newsletter about using chatGPT to write a song prefaced by "i feel like you will appreciate this regardless of your feelings about the decemberists"
i do dislike the decemberists but loved the very silly generative "yes and" convo we had and always have with each other. i also love how every time think of something i hate that i maybe haven't actively thought about hating in a while, i immediately think "omg, maybe i haven't yet added an entry for this on my list of Things Reasonable People Love That I Hate" and excitedly open that note in my Notes app and either i have already added an entry (which feels satisfying like yes i know myself) or i get to add a new entry (which feels satisfying like yes i learned something about myself) so like win win, this is honestly the most positive development in my life as a hater and i really recommend this practice as an accompaniment to gratitude (kind of a yin/yang thing?).
(for the record, the decemberists were not yet on the list yet and later in the day i was happy to make two more additions "Shakespeare" (after reading this paul ford column) and later in the day, reading some best-of-the-year TV recommendation list, "Jury Duty (show)" with a motherfucking bullet)
one of my favorite podcasts i started listening to last year is straightiolab, a podcast where a guest picks an aspect of straight culture to discuss with the incredibly funny hosts george and sam. i subscribed so i could hear past episodes from friends of the pod sarah ("consulting") and claire ("overhead lighting"; other recent episodes include "happy hour" with lauren michele jackson, "santa" with matt rodgers, and "axe-throwing bars" with liza treyger). anyway they have a rapid fire Q&A segment, "straight shooters", where they present the guest with a series of punn-y binaries and the guest has to choose one or the other option to demonstrate their "familiarity and complicity with straight culture" and i thought of it as i enjoyed sorting between my internal binary of "things i'm grateful for" and "things i hate".
deborah (who has a permanent four day week which i am grateful for/jealous of) went to ikea on her day off yesterday (it was still crowded lol) and didn't find what she was looking for but had the idea to pick up jimmy john's on the way home (which criminally doesn't have delivery to our house) and i just fucking love jimmy john's (specifically the spicy italian sandwich which at home i dress with extra vinegar and cholula) and am always very grateful for this stop to be added to a trip to either target or ikea (both near the store)).
this wild report about a contest in psychedelic cryptography which basically means visually encoding a message so that it only can be easily seen by people who are on psychedelics. also the sublime alien oil slick rainbow smear landscape paintings of elliot green, who i learned about a while ago from ashley. i've never seen one in person and mostly experience his work through his instagram (they are truly blessings in the feed) but you can see images of a ton of his work on his website as well as his exhibition catalogues (including one with an essay from wayne kostenbaum)
spent four hours in deep flow state friday writing a technical doc explaining in granular detail how a devtool i built for our team works and how an iteration attempt to make it more powerful failed to help the engineers who are working to rearchitect our frontend infrastructure know how to get the same kind of functionality in that world (since it's become something that the team has come to rely on) and there was so much to say it didn't feel like i was going to finish it but i didn't want it running in the background of my mind over the weekend so i pushed through and got it done
the smell of deborah's homemade granola baking in the oven on the other side of the house
