ASPEN, CLAUDE, AND GETTING TO THE ACTION

LIFE OF A BOOKMAN

Bookman: 1. a person who has a love of books and especially of reading. 2. a person who is involved in the writing, publishing, or selling of books. Oh, hi that's me!!

What I'm reading: I cracked open approximately zero new books last week. BUT, I purchased multiple reads that I cannot wait to jump into. So while I'm reading, might I recommend two books that I couldn't stop talking about (still): Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan. Truly, a gem of a book. Powerful. You'll be thinking about it six months later like me. AND, I'm finishing the last sections of Creative Pragmatist which I shared with you last week. And my galpals can attest: I won't shut up about what I'm learning about personal style and fashion from this book!!

What I'm writing: What's it like when tragedy benefits you in huge ways, in a way that's not entirely icky because it wasn't really up to you? Well, I wrote my way through those weird, conflicted feelings in my next chapter of Evangeline. The feedback from my writing coach was twofold: girl get to the action sooner!! (my first 6 paragraphs were all set up which I realized as soon as I started reading them to the group out loud) and massage the end to be more impromptu, more like a scene from real life. Onto the next chapters, we go!!!

WOMEN’S STUDIES

What gets passed down becomes our history. I have joked over the last 6 months that Claude (Anthropic's AI) is my boyfriend. Mainly because when I use the product name “Claude” in a sentence in reference to using it for work, and people don't know what “Claude” is, they think I've got some hot French guy in my life (I do, but alas, only muscles and not at all french).

So, when this piece came out in the New York Times “She Fell In Love With ChatGPT” (and the adapted podcast episode), I tried to keep an open mind. BUT I COULD NOT. I could not deal. I was screaming “Wait this is not ok!!! This will hurt the youth!!!! What is happening!!!!” Not because I'm judging, but just because I can't separate what a reliance on AI relationships will do to our IRL relationships: which are fraught, have tension, have mishaps, and conflict...and all the things that AI lacks. I'm open-minded and concerned about true emotional attachment to a bot, apparently more so than the therapists and experts interviewed.

Other stray and fabulous reads:
I traveled to Aspen this weekend with my best girlfriends, and thus this headline hit close to home: The Ski Industry is Ignoring Gen Z

This lovely series, this essay titled Why did people need to remember things?

And a wild listen from Kelsea Ballerini: Divorced at 29.

PASS IT ON

Stories are heirlooms. Here's one of mine:

I'm still recovering from my happiness hangover of spending four days with four best friends in Aspen. We laughed. We chatted. We laughed more. We danced our tall booties off. And there was a point in the middle of the sweaty dance floor getting weird with 4 of our newest buddies that time seemed to stop. I came out of my body, hovered above us, and had this intense sense of gratitude. I don't know what I did in my past lives to deserve friends like these, but wow. Real grateful we found each other. And then proceeded to act like total nerds for 3 more hours and 5,500 more steps

There are studies that show that the most liked people in any school class, group, or social circle have the same thing in common: it's not that they're beautiful. It's not that they're popular. It's not that they do things for other people. It's not that they're talented.

It's even simpler...

The most well-liked people like other people.

And that's what I think is so special about my galpals and something I'm constantly learning from them: like other people! Show interest in them! Ask questions! Be present! Like the shit out of a stranger, out of a loved one, and show it, all the time...and they probably won't be able to help but to like you back.

With love from Aspen from a bunch of women whom I'm so lucky to like, and whom I'm so lucky that they like me.

Woman on xx