HAWAII, AI BOYFRIENDS, AND SITUATIONAL AWARENESS

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!!

Grown-up Picture Book: I remember being 16, on a church trip to Hawaii (I know, I know, I have questions about a “church trip to Hawaii” too...). At a Banana Republic in Maui, I found the perfect hot-pink trench coat from Banana Republic. It had a hot pink silk trim around the lapel and cuffs, with a light blush liner. I can still recall the joy of wearing it through high school. I loved that thing. Feeling great in a piece is something I can identify, but I've never known why or what about my personal style that the piece is activating. It wasn't until about 6 years ago that I was giving a keynote talk at a sales summit for a fashion brand that – when outfitting me in jewelry before I went onstage – the “expert stylist” deemed my style as statement-maker. And I feel like that fits?? Probably for more than just the way I dress and sometimes for the wrong reasons, lulz.

Still, while I know what looks good on me, I don't have a handle on my closet, or how to build my wardrobe across seasons (or decades!). Which I've been desperately wanting to do. And is also why Creative Pragmatist by Amy Smilovic is a book that is literally changing my life. Every night I force myself to put it down, with thoughts of I wish I had this book 10 years ago. Even 15!

With detailed sketches, frameworks, education and personal stories, Amy (founder of the fashion brand Tibi) explains why counterintuitive choices work together, why obvious ones don't, and why that “basic tee” just makes you feel basic (and how to change it).

Now here's my caveat: this is a $100 paperback coffee table book. So, find three girlfriends to go in together and pass the book around ;)

What I'm writing: This weekend I got deep into the horror of my inciting moment in Evangeline – a scene about a hotel fire and it's aftermath. It made me a little nauseous to work on, because to channel fear and grief on the page is to feel fear and grief in your heart. But it got done, and then I realized I'm struggling because I've come up on my first plot point a little too quickly (word count wise) which means I need to build out more scenes in Act 1...but I don't know what those scenes are. So, that's this week's challenge!

WOMEN’S STUDIES

What gets passed down becomes our history. Over the weekend, my college besties group chat lit up with how we're all using AI (or not). I shared with them that via some lightbulb moments I'd had thanks to Ai Driven Leader about using it as a thought partner (versus a task rabbit), I'd started testing it with more situations. “Be an expert relationship therapist and somatic practitioner. Read these text messages <insert screenshots> and tell me what you think. Feel free to ask me questions to gain context on the situation!” Wooooooo buddy, Claude (Anthropic's AI) was so spot on about how out of line and out of touch the message from my ex was. Not only were the answers fantastic (and validating!!), but instead of having to emotionally pour out onto one of my best friends to get their input on something that I already knew the answer to, I just threw it to Claude. And then of course I proceeded to tell all of my girlfriends from an entertaining place of listen to this shitttttt.

Some of you are reading this and having an absolute allergic reaction. But there are so many times in a day I want to dissect stupid shit with my galpals, but it's a waste of their emotional energy and it's a waste of mine. Taking these situations to Claude has been a great way to get it off my chest without adding more fuel to a fire that I never needed to start to begin with. (One of my intentions over the last year or two is to stop leaking energy by talking about dumb shit just for the drama of it).

So all of that leads me to say that this piece in Harper's Bazaar had the main message I think many people are missing: After my Husband Left Me I paid $70 for an AI Boyfriend. It made me realize AI's true potential might be emotional labor. And I'll take that one step further to say that “venting” to friends is proven to make a situation emotionally worse for you, not better, because it gets you all riled up all over again. Which is where dumping on a bot via rage typing instead can be effective.

PASS IT ON

Stories are heirlooms. Here's one of mine:

Ok whether you like it or not we're staying on the AI topic here with some papers that absolutely rocked my world: Situational Awareness: The Decade Ahead. My dear friend John described these essays to me as “taking the red pill” (choosing to see the uncomfortable, life-changing truth. The wake-up.) And I'd say he was right. I stayed up far too late, too many nights in a row, trying to finish these papers. You'll have to read them to understand, but imagine a four year old trying to reason with you, to tell you what to do. Well, in a world of super intelligence, which is in all likelihood way sooner than we're ready for, we – humanity – are the four year old. This is the MOST reductive explanation possible, but maybe enough to get you reading if you're already thinking about these things.

Woman on xx