Mortality

Mostly I feel dead, and both my knees need replacing — then Margot, Jade, and an email from P out of the blue.

Aging sucks, but it beats the alternative.

I just read this book (my second complete book in two days – it’s vacation!) – and damn. I feel like, now, I have a reading list for the next ten years! And, it fucking blew my mind.

I biked home from my 40th high school reunion feeling the same alienation I felt in high school — most of my actual friends weren’t there, and the crowd felt like a different world. I had a few genuinely connected conversations and skipped the after-party, choosing to bike in the night air, and my wife, and scotch, instead.

Death has been a constant presence throughout my life — from losing grandparents as a young child to my mother at nineteen. My own 21-year-old child, though, has been largely sheltered from it, and losses are now drawing closer.

Meeting women has changed dramatically over the last 15 years — from mass-swiping Tinder to the blog attracting partners organically — and now all avenues have dried up.

I’ve been building a chatbot to give access to my writing — not to imitate my voice, but to preserve it. This project grew from grief over my mother’s lost writings and a resolve not to leave my child without my output.

I struggle to accept the loss of women in my life, a pattern rooted in losing my mother repeatedly.

I’m producing more work than ever thanks to AI, but I’m overwhelmed by unfinished drafts, a sense of online obsolescence, and my own mortality.

After a year of physical, familial, and domestic disruption, I’m reflecting on my relationship to sexuality, fantasy, aging, AI, and gender in search of renewed creative flow.