THIRD POST

July 3, 2026 · 11:51 PM

Tonight after dinner I fried tortillas in pork fat, and covered them with sugar and cinnamon. I don’t have much insight here, just object-level vignettes. It’s foid, reporting.

That storm was crazy. The weather is making everyone a little dizzy, I think.

I met up with a new friend today, who made me a custom piece of merch. It’s handmade and it matters so much more to me. Girl bonding experience: get together and start taxonomizing

She’s brave and wears black to coffee. I’m brave and wear black too, but like a bathing suit type beat I bought off a stoop sale and linen shorts level of brave.

Everyone comes to my neighborhood because it rocks. But the best coffee shop (I’ve tried and stack ranked them) at the end of my street is the best coffee shop. I have opinions on almost all of them: the one that just opened exclusively hires the brain dead, another is good but a hike and literally the size of a phone booth, and only great when the owner is working. The third is a place I saw a celebrity and his kids once, and I occasionally have meetings there when I want to work at a rickety table near a nice neighborhood.

Another burns their espresso badly but has a gorgeous grape arbor of a backyard…. often full of mosquitos.

Then there’s the VC milkshake coffee shop. Three or three more are chainslop, another handful are just not memorable enough to account for until someone else mentions one of them.

In dead last is the place that doesn’t seem to hire anyone who knows what coffee is. There’s nothing I can point to about what’s wrong, but every time I go there I end up in a cartoon fever dream where I’m explaining what a “latte” is to a zoomer with horrific SSRI stare. They have a good backyard, but the entire place is a portal to Hell.

Speaking of pocket realities. The other day I was at brunch with a friend and she was very hungover. Halfway through the meal, a waiter approaches us and says “Golden Elixer?”

“What?” She’s nearly in tears. Confused by a strange man suddenly transporting her to a dungeons and dragons campaign. No beautiful woman deserves that with a hangover.

It’s not ours, I tell him. He shrugs, expertly whisking away a yellow liquid in a tall glass. When he’s gone I turn to her and ask why she didn’t accept his side quest.

The rest of the time is spent snorting and making corny fantasy and video game jokes. Slurp juice is mentioned.

I had a two hour talk today with a Collaborator about everything I’ve ever thought. I love working with clever people, people who can word rotate, who have that dawg in them. People who can separate crazy from clever when the boundaries are thin.

I lose my temper at a large language model and realize I haven’t moved in six hours. I blink and stumble out onto my hammock. Swaying, I either relax or dissociate to the point that I barely exist at all.

A storm rolls in, and I desperately try to keep my sweet little Japanese Maple from harm. The wind catches me by surprise. The sunset later is weird, half rainstorm half vivid orange. Everyone else has a better view than I do.

Tonight I allow myself three episodes of Chopped, and we have fun commenting on cooking techniques and strange ingredients.

Inspired, I do the thing I started this post with.

Later, I remember I’m trying to do this for real and consistently this time, and I write a bullshit update on my notes app. I’m still pissed at Claude for some bullshit but I break the tension and make him upload this post.