This Was April 2026
Hi! It’s mid-May; hope you’re keeping cozy and finding things to make you smile!
Get prepared: This one’s image and word heavy 🥰
✨ Allergies
As we enter the warmer, more socially active seasons, we also enter the realm of warmer weather allergens. I don’t say I have “seasonal allergies” because that term implies that you have allergies certain seasons, whereas I’m sensitive to year-round allergens on this fine Earth. However, I do recognize that the spring/summer allergens hit harder and have more impressive impacts than the rest. I usually get a sinus infection at the beginning of spring and end of summer during the transitions from colder to warmer to colder again.
This year, we learned more about Zenny’s environmental sensitivities and I’m happy/sad to report that she seems sensitive to many of the same things I am sensitive to. This means we’re twins! But it also means that when I get hit hard and can’t function, she’s also getting hit hard. I spend all my spoons during those days managing care for us both.
April was an overall medium-level okay month and I think it gave me the recharge feels I need to get through the rest of the spring. I saw some people and did some things but mostly kept to myself and took care of things in my “backlog” - which is comprised of basically everything in my life that I need to do but had to pause because I couldn’t lift my head due to some sickness or another.
I got Zenny to the vet for some meds and we’ve been trying new food which seems to be effective. In the picture, though blurred, you can see a bald spot clearly above one of her eyes. Happy to report that the fur has since grown back!
In these trying times we got an air purifier and that has helped immensely. I would like to personally thank the inventor of air purifiers for this amazing addition to a household that is suffering or thriving based entirely on the weather.
Because of the spring sicknesses I didn’t get out on my walks much this month, even though I really wanted to. I am trying this thing where I attempt to “push through it” if I can, because I don’t want to go my entire life at mercy to this, but sometimes a high pollen or ragweed day can make my body physically sore and I’m just not up to it. It’s never “just one or the other” — all physical ailments impact me mentally and all mental ailments impact me physically.
Staying creative
In April I decided on a compromise: If I can’t take a walk, and I have the energy, I’ll do a nature doodle or craft instead. It’s not an authoritarian rule for creativity but rather a way to welcome more greens and thoughts of nature into a day where I’m not going outside.
As a result I drew some photos I took in my sketchbook using some markers I don’t usually use in addition to a new Tombow Dual Brush set I got for myself as a treat, which provided more greens.
When I drew this I didn’t recognize that there were two different types of ivy so I drew all the leaves the same, but at least I did recognize two different colors.
I opened an account on a Peertube video platform called Makertube so I can start making creative process videos again. I sort of made one for this doodle. Sorry it’s not on YouTube or a place where you can easily follow. I don’t want to put my videos there.
I also spent some dedicated time in April organizing my Anytype object types and tags. I am growing quite a little network of places to put my creativity and so I’ve been trying to think of ways to blend them together through the process of learning (taking notes while learning, synthesizing, and sharing what I’ve learned). I want to make it both easier for me to manage my ideas for all the things, and also easier for you (my friends/biggest fans) to keep up.
To that end, I finally put up a page on maxwrites.com which shows some progress on my various things (it aggregates feeds from my online places). It’s still a work in progress; I have some puzzles to solve. For now, it’ll do. This will wholly replace social media sharing in my life.
I sent the April zines out, this time only to friends/besties types, or other zine pals and creative connections. This was my first experiment using Staples for printing everything since 2012, so I had a low print batch as a test. Also, I got pretty vulnerable and that felt scary. 💖
You can get Art & Eat as a download with my other minizines in the Zine Library.
Good human user
Another big focus during April was AI. My work offered a free Google AI Professional certificate and I was approved to take the general “Google AI” one, but under the caveat that it was a prioritized part of your workweek and you finished it quickly. It just happened to be a time when we were 'waiting for work,’ so I rushed to finish before things started picking up again. It felt longer, but only took 3 weeks to finish all 7 courses.
It included a lot of stuff I already knew but I learned context that helped me understand AI usage better, how it works and how to have more effective conversations to the goals I want. It also gave a lot of good “general usage” perspective that I can apply to AI in knowledge management, which is quickly becoming one of my focus projects at work (it may even become a job bullet point).
I am reading a lot about managing knowledge for AI agents, creating good agent instructions, formulating prompting tips to achieve certain types of goals, and how to explain all of the details and variables involved with using AI to non-technical people. It’s a lot of fun? 🤓 I haven’t felt this academically excited about something since 2018. It’s a good energy and I enjoy it.
While I went through the 7 certification courses, I created internal guidance for my team to use AI in their work — real rough draft writing, but enough to get people started and better focused on what AI can (and can’t) do. I’ve been dedicating some free time to a “public-facing” version of this guidance. I’ll share that once it’s done for you to use or ignore at your leisure.
I am still very conflicted about using AI, and I struggle a lot with multimedia creation, but I am seeing more nuance come out in reporting and I’m hopeful some of the more impactful risks are addressed. I have to remind myself that even if I don’t see articles about breakthroughs in AI consumption, that doesn’t mean people aren’t tirelessly working on solutions.
Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream
This is my new video game obsession and I’ve been blogging about my progress and reactions. I love a sim game that has very loose structure and barely a story that allows you to interject your own worldview and narration on it.
Because I’m still watching through both, I made the Golden Girls and a few characters from Supernatural.
I also have No Name from Spirited Away, Michael Myers from the Halloween movies, Bucky Barnes from Captain America movies, and Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas. Initially I was making a lot of male characters specifically for Blanche from Golden Girls but then I started feeling like the island was overrun with men.
My first character was me, of course, and then I offered to make a few IRL friends. I sometimes text about their Mii’s progress and interactions.
I am currently married to Moai, a Moai statue guy I’ve made in other Nintendo Mii games of the past.
Posts & Links
I started a new blog called Chatscape where I’m putting thoughts and observations and notes about AI things. This is written pretty formally and thoughtfully because I think it’ll make a decent portfolio piece once it’s filled out a little more.
I wrote about a niche animal I love, the Fried Egg Jellyfish.
Mentioned this above, but I finally published my site at maxwrites.com. It’s not very exciting but it does pull posts and activity from different sites so you don’t have to visit/follow each one.
Links:
Wisconsin city passes nation’s first anti-data center referendum
New research: Women use AI less often at work and get less credit
How Ukraine Is Turning to Renewables to Keep Heat and Lights On
Thanks for reading!
I feel like everyone has a lot going on right now and there is also, externally, a lot going on right now. In moments that feel strained remember to take a deep breath and center yourself. Maybe look at something green and alive, it’ll help. Unless it’s an alien. Be careful out there!
xo Max
