Work

• Once again, did zero work on the novel this week.
• Didn’t work on the comic for Indie Comix Fest either. Blame my broken brain.
• Ironically, I wrote and published a blog post about my relationship with work. Whatever you’re thinking right now, stop thinking it immediately.
• Does emotional work count as work? Because I did a lot of that this week. I spent many of my days reading, taking notes, and writing in my journal. I have little to show for it in terms of output, but I feel more at peace today than I did at the end of last week.

Not work

• I mentioned in my last weeknote that I wanted to carve out more time for myself. I’m happy to report that I managed to do just that on most days this week, spending much of my time on things that make me happy and content. As I write this, I feel a lot more like myself.

• The orange cat I mentioned last week had to have his tail amputated because of necrosis. It’s a terrible shame, but the doctors said it was the only way he could have a life free of pain and infection. He’s still recovering at the vet’s, but he should be back home this coming week.

• I’m declaring text message bankruptcy. If you’ve texted me in the past few weeks and haven’t received a response, I apologize profusely. Abandon all hope at this point, because I’m not likely to respond back.

• I gifted Tanvi a MagiClick AI Button as a late birthday present. The previous version of the MagiClick button was sold as a programmable macropad powered by an ESP32. This new version is sold as a sort of AI assistant, and comes with a pre-installed firmware that allows you to talk to an LLM served by XiaoZhi AI using your voice. The control panel allows you to chose between a couple of popular Chinese open-weights models, tweak a bunch of parameters, and set a custom system prompt. The default prompt tells the LLM to act like an AI girlfriend who is a “biker chick”. All I’m going to say is that some choices were made. Regardless, the button is fun to play with and can presumably be used to control something like Home Assistant.

• I finally met fellow weeknoter Nats and her partner Rudy on Saturday. We spent an entire evening talking about stationery, Hobonichi Techos, Sakura Microns, gothic literature, Rust, LLM assisted programming, and bare-chested Stalin on a horse.

• My new therapist had to cancel our appointment on Monday because she broke her ankle. I know I sound selfish as I say this, but I was incredibly upset when I received the cancellation message. I’d been feeling awful the previous week and really needed the support. I couldn’t have been more grateful to her when she rescheduled our appointment for later in the week, despite still being in pain from her injury. She didn’t have to do it, and I hadn’t asked for a fresh appointment. She did it anyway, not just for me but for her other clients as well. I’m filled with gratitude, even as I understand that working while sick is unsustainable in the long run. (Didn’t I already say I feel selfish? That absolves me from all guilt. Them’s the rules.)

• Finished playing A Short Hike

• Finished watching Superstore

• Started watching Nobody Wants This

• Still reading Fingersmith and All About Love. Sigh.

Links of the week

• Notes Against Note-Taking Systems by Sasha Chapin
• How to forget what you read by Oliver Burkeman
• Learning By Writing by Holden Karnofsky
• Why Write? by Patrick Grafton-Cardwell
• Rank and File by Robert Minto
• How I use AI (Oct 2025) by Ben Stolovitz