Journal

Aneesah’s birthday. Up early to pick up some flowers, coffee and pastries on the way back, gifts, and then both of us at work. As we get older it becomes harder to buy gifts for one another. We get the things we want when we need them, and we don’t really need gifts. Still, we get gifts. I tried to focus on time and effort this year. Finding just the right things. Making things by hand. Making things for the people you love feels good.

During lockdown in 2020, Aneesah created an at-home cinema experience for me based on our favorite movie theatre, the Everyman. She called it the Everybug after our (adorable) nicknames for one another. Snacks, tickets, even took me to my seat. I loved it, and I love her for doing it. Thousands of miles from London, I opened the Oakland location for her birthday this year. Snacks, tickets, even took her to her seat.

There’s something about being hunched over, cutting ticket after ticket—and perforating the edges until you’ve got two that feel perfect—that just feels like time well spent. I don’t think I’ve ever truly regretted making something, because making something is sort of the point. It’s the act of making. The time spent. When you’re doing it for someone else, it’s even better I think. We should all make things for one another.

I’ve been making software for over a decade, and I taught myself programming in college (I was a design major), so this current moment in the arc of technology hasn’t made something impossible possible, but it has made the “takes a while, maybe I’ll get to it” more like “will probably take minutes, why not.” I’m making things I just wouldn’t have found the time for before, and it feels great. I just like making things, period.

When I first started using large language models and tools like Claude Code or Codex to help me make things, I first did so only if I was looking at all of the code along the way, even for goofy stuff. I wanted to bring them into code-centric spaces, where they played the supporting role rather than the lead. I thought that I’d do that for a long time, but it’s shifted for me pretty quickly, at least for the goofy, transient stuff.

I was making something over the past couple of days, and I haven’t looked at the code at all really. I glanced at a couple of diffs out of curiosity, but otherwise I worked in an agent-centric tool (this time, Codex) and just expressed the thing that I wanted. It was frustrating during a couple of moments, but it was mostly great. It was a super simple project, but still, I noticed that this behavior had changed in me.

I have a sense of pride (or maybe just ego) at having taught myself some hard things over the years, and I’m still going to cling on to it for a little while longer, but it feels good to lean into this new thing a little more and take myself less seriously. I still think that writing code is fun, and that thinking in code is useful (because thinking logically is useful) but it’s also fun to just get floopy and do the thing from time to time.

I hadn’t written a memo in a while, and I’d forgotten how good it feels to write a few hundred words of impassioned nothingness. Not quite a plan, but also not a sermon. Just an opinion, written down and transmitted. It feels good to write down what you think or believe, even if you stop believing it soon thereafter. You can get a rush of adrenaline just by writing something down—isn’t that amazing? Free to anyone who takes it.

In general I think that writing is powerful in that way. You can feel something by writing, feel something by reading, feel something by speaking it out loud—even to yourself. You can write down something absolutely bonkers that you think you could never achieve, but then just write that you’re going to achieve it. You can feel giddy, drunk on the power of silly little words that didn’t exist until you wrote them down.

I’d always known this, I think, but the past year for me has been sort of mind-blowing. There comes a point I think when you realize that writing things down can make them come true, and writing them down over and over again makes it even more likely. You can just sort of… write things into existence. People do it every day of course, for the stage or the screen, but what the heck is this whole thing if not just another stage.

A rainy day in San Francisco today. We took Cacio to Golden Gate Park Dog Play Area 1 which is just such a cute name. She rolled in the mud, found stick twice as long as she is, and tried to dig holes that she is not allowed to dig. I ate a pastry that will probably keep me full for a week, picked up one of Aneesah’s birthday gifts, and ended the evening by trying to find a good rotisserie chicken for sandwiches. A good day: embraced some elements and then curled up in the warm eating sandwiches and fries.

Finally getting my taxes done today—slightly more complicated than I’d hoped because of an error in reporting. Mostly sorted now, but it made me yearn for the tax system in the U.K. where you don’t have to submit a tax return and where it just… works, for the most part. I spent most of my life not really thinking about it, and now I spend far too much time thinking about it. It’s so easy to take things for granted.

By the time I was done the day was almost over, but I didn’t want to start and end my day thinking about taxes, so we popped out to eat ramen at a neighborhood restaurant. It had been raining all day, and a bowl of hot broth was just what I needed. Noodles, a cold beer, and a malted ice cream sundae to finish. It was fucking great and I felt so much better afterwards. The place was cosy, the staff kind, the food excellent.

Back home now with my two favorite people (Cacio is people) asleep on the couch and Peep Show on the TV. I wrote about this yesterday, but I really feel like I accomplished it today: I had two days. I reset and turned a pretty annoying day into a pretty great one. I got to sit next to Aneesah as we slurped ramen, and then across from her at the wine bar afterwards as we talked about life and enjoyed a drink together.

Funny day in a funny week. Something that seems ridiculous but that also feels true is that you can have a “funny week,” or even a “funny month.” Time doesn’t really work like that, and yet somehow it does. We talk about a tough day, and sometimes about a hard year. I try to avoid this way of thinking a lot of the time by trying to reset partway through a day. If I’ve had a touch morning, I’ll try to have a great afternoon.

Anyway, my brain was working against me this week. Difficult to start things. Difficult to focus. Stimulants helped on a couple of days, and didn’t help much on others. It’s such a strange feeling, knowing exactly what you need to do and thinking about it constantly and yet feeling completely incapable of doing it. I know more about my brain these days and I’m trying to work on it, but occasionally it’s just… one of those days.

I thought of a writing and publishing project today that I’m really excited about. I won’t say too much for now, but a related thought that struck me along the way: I want to get many wonderful stories into the world, but they need not all come from me. I love writing and I want to publish more, but I want to publish all sorts of writing and I don’t necessarily want to write all of the things I want to publish. Anyway, I’ll be saying more soon, but I’m just so excited to have landed on something that feels good.

Aneesah had to work late, so I drove to San Francisco to pick her up. She treats it as a kindness to her, but I honestly love driving there late at night, and (of course) love that she gets in the car at the other end. So many drives across the Bay Bridge are slow, inching forwards in gridlocked traffic. This late you breeze through though, taking in the city as it sparkles against the dark sky. When you’ve lived in New York and London, San Francisco doesn’t feel much like a city, but any city looks great at night.

I call Aneesah when I get off the freeway so that she can pack her things and ride the elevator down. That’s not really enough time, so we normally park up for a couple of minutes. I always bring Cacio along because who doesn’t want to be greeted by an excited, happy dog after a long day. It’s one of the best part of my day, that’s for sure. Cacio lies on the back seat quietly in the dark until she hears me unlock the door, and then she jumps up knowing that she’s about to see Aneesah.

One thing I love so much about Aneesah is that even after a long day at work, she greets me with such warmth. I know that she can’t feel that warm sometimes, but she offers warmth anyway because that’s just who she is. If someone like that enters your life, you’re so lucky. It’s always harder to be warm and open than cold and closed. It takes effort and heart to give energy that you don’t have because you care so much about the energy of others. Anyway, it makes me smile and we start the drive back home.

The drive back is uneventful, but my favorite part of the whole day. Idle chitchat, a laugh or two, a weird diversion getting back onto the freeway. Whilst stopped at a red light I look at the new lights on the Bay Bridge and feel grateful that someone (or several someones) championed a bit of beauty and whimsy just because. I love the Bay Bridge, and it deserves to sparkle. Back home we make tea and eat dessert from Parachute at the most ridiculous hour. It’s excellent, obviously.

Writing can be so hard sometimes. It’s almost always worth it, definitely good for you, probably good for the world, and sometimes hard to do. I’ve really fallen off over the past few months. The words are harder to get out. Even these few words. Six months ago I found it easy. I struggled to stop writing. Six months from now it might be the same. Humans are funny like that. I am thankful for this weird little practice though. A few words here, even if I didn’t manage to get any other words out.

I’m still so bullish on daily practice, no matter how small. I’ve come to terms with the idea that Ic a miss a day or two, but I want to acknowledge that I missed them. I want it to be a daily practice that’s imperfect, rather than calling it something else. I wrote every day because I’m a writer. I used to make art every day because I’m an artist, and I want to make art every day again. I want to run every day. Record something every day. Can’t do it all maybe, but then maybe I can? A tiny bit, every day.

I probably spent an hour or more (it was more) doomscrolling social feeds today. Did it help me? No. Did it feed my soul? Definitely not. Did it make me feel a bit sad, deplete the little energy I had and make me just a little bit more addicted to it? Unfortunately yes. Making stuff does the opposite. Making art or writing words or drawing type or… whatever. Making stuff is good for me. It gives me energy instead of taking it away, and I could have made so much stuff in an hour-ish!

I’m gonna finish my day with a cup of tea and without looking at my phone I think. A book maybe? Imagine that. I love books, and I’ve fallen off of reading recently too. It’s so hard to climb on, and so easy to fall off. That seems to be universally true about the things that are good for us. It’s easy to climb on the stuff that’s bad for us. There’s not much better than a cup of tea and a book, anyway. My only ridiculous and less attainable goal is to live in a lighthouse by a stormy sea whilst I enjoy them.

I went for a short run this morning and talked to myself out loud for the whole thing. I passed people on the street and carried on talking to myself. It was just me and… me. I did the same thing whilst driving to pick up dinner yesterday, and whilst sat in the garden a few hours earlier. I wondered whether self-talk about be different if it was… well… audible. I wondered if I could hold a single thought for longer.

It turns out that I could, and that it was weirdly helpful in thinking through something—or more accurately, thinking through a single something instead of thinking about everything everywhere all at once. I sometimes feel like I can think several things at once, but in a sort of chaotic, stressful way (and sometimes a helpful way). When I give my thoughts volume I can focus on one-ish for a hot minute.

I’m always surprised at how effective the most simple things are. Thinking out loud. Writing things down. Working on paper. Taking 10 deep breaths. It’s so tempting to overcomplicate everything, but I always end up coming back to simple things. I’ve never really tried talking to myself so intentionally before, but it’s kind of a revelation. It might even sound trite or dumb, but it doesn’t really matter. It works for me.