CIGAR PARLOR, VOLLEYBALL, AND SPIRIT OF THE DOLLAR

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!!

More is more, or is it? If money is on your mind, you have to read Soul of Money: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Life. It's easy to look around your neighborhood, or around your social media algorithm, and think about everything you don't have. This book is one of my favorites that I come back to from time to time, that reminds us what money is really about, and how use it for what it's actually for. As I'm writing this, I'm reminded of one of my favorite lines from my astrologer: Money is Gratitude. For example, when you buy my book, you're sending me gratitude for the art that I made. When I'm buying my cosmic crisp apple, I'm sending that farm gratitude for the food that they made. And wow, that whole world might change for the better if we looked at it like that??

What I've been writing: I've been hitting a frisky word count this week, but mainly in my ghostwriting. And in my reel captions. I'm recently obsessed with trial reels? This is where you can create a reel on instagram for people to see who are NOT your followers, and I've turned into a maniac creating and testing these to see what I can offer and serve with that meets women where they are at, and with what they need to hear. For this week, I'm going to consider this it's own form of writing ;) This reel is probably my favorite about the book of the summer for 2027, where space meets romance. And why I'm so delighted to see it hit! Give it a watch!

WOMEN’S STUDIES

What gets passed down becomes our history.

Write the book that sells your obsessions

I loved this conversation between two writers – Ali Kriegsman (I've recommended her New Motives in past newsletters) and Rafael Frumkin (of Cosmic Cheetoh), and listened joyfully through the whole thing. It's not easy going after a writer's life, after books in all their many forms, and to make a life of it. It requires energy that sometimes goes fully to a book, and sometimes fully to the life that will fund that book. But I really resonated with their conversation around who we are at the time we write our books. I often think about You're Not Lost and how it's an heirloom of 2018, always with me! But this is a good listen for anyone pursuing and artist dream.

Agreeable AI, a Stanford Study

Stanford did a study that showed, (uh oh!), that AI models agree with us 49% more than a human does. And here's the hard part: the more a model agrees with us, the better we like the model. This is important, and I'm evangelizing it, because we might feel like our best ideas are coming from this chatbot. But they're not. They just make us feel like they are, because they're agreeing and pumping us up way more than another human would. Keep this in mind if you're using AI to pave any next step, any ideas, any subjective plans. I've moved away from using these models as anything other than data and transcript analysis...because it can go wider and deeper in less time than I can across multiples of factors. But I'm not interested in it for ideas, for next steps, for drafts, or really even for brainstorming.

A Philosopher's One-Word Theory to Explain Why the World Feels so Weird

Derek Thompson hosted this great conversation with Philosopher Agnes Callard, about why the world feels so weird. It's a conversation about context collapse, which you can think of in simple terms like the fact something you post on your instagram that can simultaneously be viewed by your ex-fiance, your mother in law, and your boss. Like what??? That's weird!!! And this conversation gave a great framework for understanding why context collapse is weird and confusing.

Bump Set Boom: Why Girl's Volleyball is Suddenly Everywhere

If I needed an article to literally get my blood boiling, it's this one. Not because there's anything wrong with the article (talking about the popularity of my sport and how it's everywhere, all at once, and it's just missing it's Zendaya movie for cultural clout)....but because I'm sitting on the cultural phenom answer in Jackie Silva's story, A Queen with No Court, which as I told you last week, had an agent back out of representing. My god I will not stop!!!!! I know I'm early on this story, but something has got to give, because this is the best sport in the world and the hype train is catching on!!!

Other stray links: Oprah doing what Oprah does best, telling you how to answer the call for more. If anyone is a freelancer and looking for healthcare, this new service Molli is the answer to a lot of freelancer woes. Also my bestie reminded me of all that is wonderful on the Boston General Store, swoon!

PASS IT ON

Stories are heirlooms. Here's one of mine:

I'm currently sitting on an acrylic outdoor chair, that's serving as an indoor chair, until I can figure out which chairs I want and need for my dining table. Because I'm building my new apartment from scratch, and it's interesting, so interesting, to decide how I want to show up in this next phase of my life, per my apartment interior choices.

Right now, everything is leaning very gentleman's cigar parlor, by which I mean 70's Italian vibes, complete with a v moody brown couch (with a white dog, kill met). And somehow, for a bitch that loves all things woman on, a gentleman's parlor, it feels very right??? lolol

But last night I was journaling about exactly 10 years ago, when I was building my then apartment...also from zero (because I had just come back from a year in Bali, an adventure which included selling everything that I own). And my huge takeaway was: 2026 Maxine, get your mattress off the ground. ASAP. I tossed and toiled back then in 2016, over which bedframe to choose. And went like 3 years with a mattress on the ground.

My mattress is currently on the ground, because again, I haven't decided what's happening in that bedroom other than good books and good vibes (of every kind!), but decisions will be made this week, because future me doesn't sleep with her mattress on the ground for much longer than a week.

Wish me luck. Send gentleman cigar parlor vibes.

Woman on xoxo