Spent the weekend celebrating my wife’s third Mother’s Day with food, coffee, and the San Antonio Spurs. These are some of her favorite things, and they made for a wonderful couple of days of being unplugged and surrounded in a love I’m very lucky to have found.
This week has been a test so far, and it’s only Tuesday. The rest of the week will only get more challenging, so I’m doing the only thing I know how in an effort to prepare myself mentally. Reading and writing. Two things I don’t get to do nearly enough of anymore.
Yesterday, I published my first piece of fiction writing in nearly 30 years. It feels silly to say that, but then that’s part of the reason I’ve done it. For as long as I can remember, I have been obsessed with the art of storytelling. When I was young I used to write and write, and dream up all sorts of different stories that I dreamed of serializing and creating entire IP spaces out of. When I was 7 I wrote a piece of fiction that was published in a state-sponsored literary quarterly and won some award for it. Probably everyone got an award, I don’t remember, the point is: I used to want to tell stories.
Then life happened; I got interested in other things. But I always came back to stories. I’ve been a voracious reader my entire life, and interests there ebbed-and-flowed as well. There was a period of time where I read non-fiction almost exclusively. This was on the heels of the period where I read science fiction almost exclusively. But the art of the written word has always fascinated me, and I’ve always had an itch to get better at it myself.
Forcing myself to write 500 to 1000 words each morning, prompted or unprompted, so as to hone my ability to draft, edit, and shelve. To give myself permission to do it. And, over the past two weeks, I’ve gotten about five short stories under my belt. I’m doing this while also writing a weekly (fiction, technological) column, and working a day-job.
But the benefits have been incredible. I feel like I’ve got my brain back. All it took was: reading, writing, and staying away from algorithmic fast food. Now, if I could only apply similar logic to my physical well-being, then I’d feel a little more complete. Most days I feel like I’m both swelling up and melting in on myself.
Anyways, you can read the story I published here. I hope you enjoy it.
Currently Reading: Underworld by Don Delillo / Halting State by Charles Stross
Today is an overcast day, and it is slightly sticky outside. However, there is a distinct sweetness to this humidity that I find relatively pleasant. I suppose because it reminds me of childhood summers. My mother-in-law recently mentioned that she is convinced the seasons have expanded and contracted and are now completely decoupled from our Gregorian calendar. And I think she is right.
The humidity is a reminder that spring is caving to the demands of summer, and that we should all be prepared to spend an inordinate amount of time inside during the day. It is time to invest in more shorts and linen blend shirts.
Yesterday was a particularly beautiful one and, as luck would have it, I got to spend it doing my compulsory civic duty: sitting in the basement of the county court-house waiting for a court to decide whether or not I would serve on a jury. It was nice to have a majority of the day free from other obligations, which I took as as opportunity to get some writing done, so that was nice.
Today started with thunder and a notification from the National Weather Service about flash flooding in my area. So, we’re off to a great start this Friday morning.
It’s currently thundering and raining as I write this, and to say that I am disappointed would be a lie. I’ve always been a fan of grey, rainy days, so this hits the spot for me. Currently sitting with a hot cup of coffee and some very nostalgic synthwave, and I just couldn’t be happier.
Last month was an absolute whirlwind in terms of how many changes to the technological landscape occurred. It’s getting harder and harder to keep up with every new thing that happens. Something I’ll very likely write a long-form piece about in the future, but that is currently keeping me exhausted and, frankly, distracted.
Disruption is a constant in my field. It keeps things interesting. But it also requires an immense amount of brain power. You’ve got to carve out the time to consume as much information as possible, process that information, and decide what to do with it. The problem is that by the time you’ve consumed the information and are moving into the processing stage, there’s already some other ground-shaking announcement or discovery that you’ve got to go understand.
Don’t get me wrong: this is actually what I love about what I do here and over on Substack. Taking in large amounts of information, determining what it all means, and then formulating thoughts about those things to share with others. I would guess most writers feel like this is what they enjoy most about writing.
But I am getting so tired of writing about technology in general. Aside from the fact that the moat between what I can process and what I have to consume gets larger and larger, there’s just not a whole lot I can say that hasn’t already been said in the practitioner space. Everybody’s an AI expert now. Everybody understands what’s possible with it, and how to use it efficiently. And if I am being honest, the more I read about it, the more I see it in action, the less I want anything to do with it.
So while I am certainly never going to stop formulating opinions and waxing poetic about what new leaps in technological advancement mean for humanity, I’m going to publish those pieces less frequently than I have been. Instead, I’m going to split the time between my non-fiction writing and my fiction-writing.
I’m more interested in telling stories anyway, not guessing what comes next.
That’s me for now. It’s Friday, which means I’ll step away for a few days to decompress. Enjoy your selves while you can before the heat arrives.
Yesterday, I was able to get 1400 words out the door, so today will be a day of clean up. I’ve published more in the past two months than I think I have at any point in my life. And I must say: it’s fulfilling.
If there’s one take-away I have from the velocity I’m moving, it’s that I don’t want to get pigeonholed into writing long-form technical essays. The beauty of this whole thing is that you can do whatever you want, write about what ever you want to write about.
So, while I wait for notes on my larger project, I’m taking the time away from the keyboard to read good work. Literary fiction mostly, because that’s where the interesting things happen. If you’ve got anything you recommend as a detox from narrative non-fiction and science and technology, please send it my way.
Nothing particularly interesting on the feeds this morning, so I’ll leave you with this:
The weather is balmy here, and the mosquitos have decided that it’s time to make being outside miserable. This will go on for the next four months. Precisely during the time my grass requires watering the most. I am not amused.
On a slightly related note, the city about 150 miles southeast of me will run out of water within the next year. Which is unfortunate, because I actually love visiting every summer. But I’m slightly more concerned that this doesn’t seem to be getting a lot more attention than it has.
Lots happening this week. Hoping to get a new article out the door, and to continue reading through some research I am doing for a project. So mostly reading, jotting down notes, and writing. More on that front later.
Finally got through the introduction to Delillo’s Underworld. This book is enormous, and I’m still not entirely sure what it is about. I’ve been intentionally staying away from recaps or reviews for it, since that’s what I did with White Noise and ended up loving it.
So far, though I’m not sure what it’s about, I can see what Delillo is setting up. Not plot-wise, but thematically. If my senses are correct, then I am excited for this thing to unfold. It will likely be the last winter book I read for the year. We’ll see.
That’s me for today. Here’s so music for your commute:
It feels interesting to be posting back here. Invigorating, yet slightly disappointing. Disappointing mostly because I’ve been leaning into writing quite a bit this month, and I wish I’d done that earlier
My writing has been mostly technical in nature, for practical application in my career field. But I have started exploring some additional questions tangential to some of those applications, and I’m feeling inspired—hence invigorated.
You should also expect more here, as I have given myself some mandates to publish more. I’ve also found time to read again, something that eluded me a bit mid-February.
As I get older, I find myself really committing to the things I care about. Reading, thinking, and writing are three of those things, and I am going to allow myself the grace to make time for them. It’s not like we get any less busy at this point in our lives.
Currently reading:Underworld by Don Delillo
Currently watching: The San Antonio Spurs vs The Portland Trailblazers
Do something slowly and intentionally this weekend.
The turn of a new year always brings a tinge of hope with it. Historically I have found a kind of new motivation whenever this hope manifests itself. This was by no means my quietest New Year’s Eve: I had a short celebration with some extended family, had some tea while I read a book, and kissed my wife when the ball dropped. It was perfect.
But I didn’t feel the need to try and reinvent any certain aspect of my life. To be completely honest, this is comforting to me. I’ve never had a new year where I didn’t have a resolution and I’m taking this as a sign of personal growth. Being content with who you are and where you are in life is something many of us put an enormous amount of time, effort and money into realizing. I am not immune. Now I’ve come to this point and I am happy to be here; although a part of me knows this feeling is fleeting.
In 2025 I read seventeen books. While I’m not setting a “number-of-books-read” goal this year, I am setting a goal of intentionality. The trend perpetuated by apps like Goodreads or Fable of “reading goals” has, at times, driven me to simply get pages behind me as opposed to getting ideas burned into my memory. To that end, I’ve begun annotating books more; a practice I started late last year during my read-through of Karamazov. I’m finding that marking passages, ideas, and lines that stand out to me as I’m reading with tabs and writing in the marginalia of pages my initial thoughts force me to come back to them when I’m sitting with a book once completed.
However, the real magic happens when I sit with a book after I’ve completed it. I’m trying to purposely not read other reviews or user thoughts online so that I can try and pull my own themes out of each book, wrestle with them on paper, and come out the other side with a coherent grasp of each piece. This has been the most impactful change to my reading I’ve made since November, and is something I intend to continue. Some of that might end up here, some won’t; you’re welcome to follow along.
Currently reading: My Struggle (Book 1) – Karl Ove Knausgaard
It’s been a cold, rainy week which means it’s been a perfect week for disappearing into sweaters and novels.
After finishing another section of The Brothers Karamazov, I needed a palette cleanser. So I opted for a book I bought two years ago on Pearl Street in Boulder: The Stronghold by Dino Buzzati (an NYRB Classic).
While I’m still warming up to Buzzati’s specific prose style, the imagery and allegory in this book are stunning. It serves as both a commentary on modern life and a powerful parable. We shouldn’t let an uncertain future dictate our lives today. The present is all we are guaranteed.
How much time lay before him! Even a single year seemed interminably long and the good years had scarcely begun. They seemed to form an extremely long series, the end of which was impossible to glimpse, a treasure still untouched and so enormous that it could cause boredom.
I disagree with the common reading of this book. I believe the characters’ mastery of monotony is actually what unlocks their appreciation for beauty. This richness is woven into the descriptions of the clouds, mountains, and the Fortezza. Even amidst military drills, the soldiers intuitively feel the changing seasons. It’s a powerful reminder that discipline can lead to deeper awareness.
The snow fell thick and heavy, accumulating on the terraces and turning them white. Watching it, Drogo felt his usual anxiety more acutely. In vain he sought to drive it away by dwelling on his youth and the many years that remained to him.
The story’s conflict isn’t the wait; it’s the search for meaning. The Fortezza represents the human vessel: existing in nature, aging with time, and waiting for a “something” to justify its existence. It’s built for a war, but not a physical one. Our main character, lost in his own lack of direction, adopts the fortress’s mission as his own. He never gets the glory he expected, but he does eventually find his purpose. The tragedy is that as soon as he grasps it, it slips away.
And yet the winds of time were blowing. Paying no heed to humanity, they swept back and forth around the world and laid waste to beautiful things.
And that is what I think Buzzati’s real message here is: You should never lose hope, but you shouldn’t let hope be your justification for indecision.
Currently reading: The Brothers Karamazov (Part Three) by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Currently listening to:
Current inbox: 5 items that need doing – and I can’t find the motivation to begin even one of them
Signal Intent 