A couple with a baby in a stroller stopped in front of the old Apple store and looked at each other, confused. In unison, they pulled out their phones and started looking online, speaking to each other in Chinese. I was walking toward them and smiled. “Are you looking for the Apple store?” I asked. Again, in unison, they smiled and nodded. “YES,” he said emphatically and with relief. I explained that it had recently moved and pointed it out. He chuckled, “Ah ha.” She said, “Thank you, thank you.” They nodded and continued down the street toward the no-longer-iconic-looking store. It was a small experience, lasting less than two minutes, but lovely. A tiny exchange of connection.

The Revivalists are singing from the speakers at the coffee shop. I love their music. The lead singer, David Shaw, is a surprisingly awkward live performer. A good-looking man, he postures on stage, feather-preening and strutting like cock. (Do I mean it the way you think I mean it?) Probably the young people in front of the stage are delighted but I’m there for the music. And to shout “get off my lawn” with the curmudgeonly abandon of a middle-aged woman wearing practical shoes.

I met a friend for brunch. She looked like an advertisement for dressing well at any age. I looked like I picked out a tshirt from my 95 year old neighbor’s 1980’s cast-offs that have been sitting in a pile in her closet since Y2K. We had a lovely meal and walked around the community afterwards, finally stopping at the shipping container house under construction in Bloomfield. “The only shipping container house in Pittsburgh,” the signage advertises. We peeked inside and puzzled over how they plan to manage temperature in an all-steel structure. It is, so they claim, “far more resistant to rodents than the average stick-built home.” I guess they’re referring to that notoriously easy-to-blow-over house built by one of the three little pigs. 

There’s an elderly man across from me wearing a John Lewis “good trouble” shirt. As I’m admiring it, a young hipster-looking individual enters the shop wearing a “doing my best” hoodie. Same. Same. 

Two women are talking, sitting close together at the table next to me. They’re discussing another woman’s body: She’s very fit. (She is, but a bigger girl. You know?) Right. She has a curvy rear. (It’s quite round. But fit. She’s very fit.) Yes. I wish my boobs were as big. (I know. She has a RACK.) They both laugh. I can’t decide if they really like her or really hate her. We don’t need to discuss the incredible level of misogyny embedded in any discussion of a woman’s body by other women, particularly when they aren’t lifting her up IN her presence.

I’m editing a chapter right now and I’m thoroughly stuck. I can’t figure out what’s wrong. There’s something, though, for sure. I open the chapter, stare at it for three hours, tweak a word here or there and then sigh with frustration before closing the chapter and reopening it 15 minutes later as though something will have changed. LOL I think I’m going to delete the entire novel and just throw myself into a dustbin. Or maybe I’ll work on a later chapter to get myself unstuck. Which will I choose? Dustbin of history or more work on the book? TBD, I think.

Olivia Dean’s new album is upbeat and lyrical, with soaring harmonies. I particularly like “So Easy.” I am not listening to Taylor Swift’s new album. If I were to comment, which I do not intend to do, I think words such as “trite” and “juvenile” would work on the lyric “his love was the key that opened my thighs.” Perhaps one can become too comfortable in her fame. Certainly, with enormous wealth, one can find a writing partner other than an LLM.

I have had my first ChatGPT experience. Deliberately using passive voice here, a thing about which my former and favorite writing professor would have THINGS to say: ChatGPT was given an article that I wrote–I’m not going to get into the ethics of that right now–to review and edit. I then received a copy of the results. (My friend, if you are reading this, it’s all good. xo)

In a shocking turn of events, I found the results enlightening. ChatGPT is definitely not for me but I understand now how incredibly effective this LLM is at engaging with humans. I showed the output to one of my kids and told him that ChatGPT and I are dating. He did not find that funny, which makes it funnier to me, somehow. Anyway, my son and I talked about the results, what he made of the whole thing, what I thought of it, and the future of AI. 

A first reading of the results would suggest that I am a freaking genius who is moments away from winning a Pulitzer or Nobel in literature. My ego agrees completely with ChatGPT on this point. I drank its praise like water from the fountain of youth. But just like the fountain, all that praise is not real. ChatGPT isn’t a person. It cannot reason. It cannot think. It cannot evaluate your work for merit, talent, quality because those concepts are subjective. It is not capable of forming opinions. It isn’t a person. It does not feel. It cannot like you or hate you. It will use whatever information–true or false, conservative or liberal, fascist or antifascist–it is given. Remember, as you use it, that it’s dangerous to believe what a machine was taught to tell you. 

Much love.