Half Hearted

I have been blogging now for 20 years, and while sometimes I’m incredibly prolific, other times I can go weeks or months without updating my website. But even in the periods of writing drought, I do try to write once a week about what I’ve done during the past week: where I’ve been, what I’ve eaten, what I’ve read, and so on. But now that AI has ruined the Web, I think I’m going to move that weekly update to a newsletter. I’m angry that my writing and thinking has been usurped by the giant technology companies to create their bullshit machines; but it’s the personal writing that really bothers me most. It’s one thing to capitalize on my professional work — fuck you fucking fucks — but they’re ghouls who use the personal things I’ve written about — Anthony’s death, Isaiah’s death most obviously.

It’s a real dilemma, you know? I have been fortunate enough to be able to piece together a career as a writer by writing on the Web. But it’s no longer sustainable — financially, emotionally, politically, environmentally. I don’t participate in the social media platformization of words and relationships either. So I guess I’ll revert, again here, to email.

It’s not something I’m going to widely publicize, I don’t think. If someone asks, I’ll send the link to sign up.

(Mostly I’m copying Kin, who started sending a weekly personal newsletter in addition to blogging so incredibly often.)

And perhaps, by offloading this list of “what I did” to an email, I can from time to time actually write something more substantive on my own website. I mean, I have ideas all the time, but much of the day-to-day writing energy goes into Second Breakfast (and ostensibly into the book I’m working on). So I find little time to flesh out other ideas in prose form.

Tuesday was Death Day — the fifth anniversary of Isaiah’s passing. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. I’m not sure if that’s testament to the therapy I did last year. Or to the passage of time. Or to the anticipation of awfulness. Or to burying my feelings. Mother’s Day was harder, truth be told. And as the two days always fall so close together on the calendar, it’s hard to separate one from the other. Very few people said anything to me about either. I guess people feel weird saying “Happy Mother’s Day”? I don’t know. (I mean, I remain a mother. And I am a stepmother.) But not a single person said “Happy Mother’s Day,” and that fucking sucked. So maybe I was so much up in my feelings about that on Sunday that when Tuesday rolled around, I was too exhausted to have any more big emotions.

Kin and I ate at Ayat, a Palestinian restaurant, on Tuesday evening. Isaiah’s favorite food was “Middle Eastern” and the restaurant would’ve suited his food and political preferences, for sure. He would have ordered something spicier than we did, no doubt. Kin ordered this amazing lamb dinner; I had a chicken thing that was layers of chicken and chickpeas and crispy pita chips and yogurt and almonds. We got a baklava dessert too. The food was fucking incredible; the service was awful. Oh well.

Saturday was the RBC Brooklyn Half, and Fred and Emily came to town. She and I have done several races together, and while I wish our paces were more similar so we could actually run together, it was so great to share the experience with someone.

The experience: ungodly humidity. It wasn’t that hot — although I think by Saturday afternoon it was the warmest day of the year so far, well into the 80s. But it was the humidity that was unbearable. I went into the event knowing that the weather wasn’t going to be ideal for my PRing, despite having a very good training block. I was slightly faster than the NYC Half. But it still was a good 6 or 7 minutes slower than what I’d have liked to have run.

I would joke “at least I didn’t die,” but it’s a lot less funny as someone actually did.

Emily had a great race, shaving time off her half in Philly last fall.

And while they were here, we did lots of eating: Cheeseboat on Thursday, with dessert at Oasis; Old John’s Diner on Friday; Kossars for bagels; Nathan’s Famous while down on Coney Island for the finish of the race; Lovely’s Old Fashioned and food at the 9th Avenue street festival; and pizza from around the corner.

Poppy was back at the vet this past week, as she suddenly fell ill on Wednesday morning. We think she might’ve eaten something during our park walk, as she seemed fine until late morning then she dissolved into barfing and shaking. The vet couldn’t find anything wrong with her. Hooray. But also $$$.

Poppy being sick drew Kin away from the API Days event he was at. Both he and I are finding it a little odd to be around the crowds of tech and tech-adjacent fans of AI. So many people I once greatly respected who are now full-throated advocates for a technology that is consolidating the fascistic power of the tech oligarchs. It’s pretty fucking upsetting.

On Wednesday night, I attended the second session of the “Fighting the Broligarchy” class I’m in. Journalist Paris Marx was the speaker. I have to say — no offense to Paris — that the number of men who dominate all these discussions is more than a little eye-rolling. You can see why podcasting has become so popular because there is just so much blah blah blah. You can also see why so many men love generative AI. They really do think that their ideas and their words — the voice they hear echoed in ChatGPT too — deserves to be spewed and spread prolifically. No space for contemplation; no time for silence. Fill it all with content.

I usually don’t find recovery from half marathons to be particularly hard. I have trained well, and while it’s a big effort, it’s not one that causes too much soreness or any injuries. That said, with everything — death day, mostly — I am feeling a little beat up. I’m cutting back my running for the next month, just to give my body a bit of a break. I swam this morning — the first time I’ve been in the pool since last summer’s triathlon. Of course, of course, five minutes into the swim, my goggles broke. So I’ll try again on Friday.

As the fitness influencers and MAHA wingnuts continue to promote protein, I’m leaning into my fiber years. I ate Raisin Bran this past week — fiber and iron. Really pretty key for my body’s functioning even more than the protein, I reckon. I am not a big cereal fan as adding milk to crispy flakes or Os always results in a bowl of mush, and as a texture eater, that’s really a no go. But there’s something about Raisin Bran that is acceptable in mush form. Perhaps it’s just the association with aging and the need to gum down food that keep the bowels moving. I do not know.

I do not know if this newsletter thing is going to stick. But look how much I’ve written for a first time out the door.

Yours in struggle,

Audrey