2026 Week 21 Notes: All the yeses it took to get here
🗓️ // 18 — 24 May 2026
In therapy today, I heard myself saying something like I don't feel seen by people who don't read my words, and then I had to somehow exist all day inside the brain that barfed that out.
This from the week that began with the 28th anniversary of my very first blog post. (Someday I'll restore the archives.)
So while weeknotes are a pain in the ass to write, I'm always glad I did them, which reminds me of the Dorothy Parker quote: "I hate writing, but I love having written."
Also this week: Keenan and I released the very last Friendship Material episode. What a ride! I still marvel at all the yeses it took to get here.
Becoming friends with Keenan brought me a lot of joy over the past year, and it also renewed my abiding appreciation for all of the people I've ever called "friend" in this lucky, lucky life.
📸 One Photo
Criminy's squinty face has melted me.
✍️ Writing
A couple of months ago I heard a song and a bunch of memories hit me so hard I started writing them down. It is slowly turning into an essay about this one time twenty years ago I tried not to fall in love with two people falling in love with each other while I was trying not to fall out of love. It's a laugh riot. (Nope.)
A line: "It wasn't so bad, I thought, like the ribbons of basil, to be torn apart and ingested in some better purpose. Usefulness could be a type of love."
I hope to share the rest with you soon.
📚 Reading
This week, Kobo announced a new integration with The StoryGraph ... six months after I switched from The StoryGraph to Hardcover because the latter integrates with my "now" page. 😑
Which integration do I care more about? We shall see.
- Finished "Creep: A Love Story" by Emma van Straaten: This was, in fact, creepy!
- Re-started "Network Effect" by Martha Wells: I am going to get through these Murderbot books! I like the series, but this one hasn't been as fun to read as the others.
📺 Watching
- FunkyPlaid and I were relieved to finish watching "The Boys", a show both repulsively crass and unnervingly prescient.
- Before that, we watched "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" which was a fun romp that we were also relieved to finish.
🎧 Listening
In tiny moments of free time over the last month I pored over my music library to find the exact right songs for a very particular playlist. It was glorious.
On Crucial Tracks this week:
🔗 Linking
- My Couples Retreat with 3 AI Chatbots and the Humans Who Love Them: I'm still reading articles like this, expecting not to be terrified for the future of human connection, and I have only myself to blame.
- The Quiet Grief of Adult Friendship: The bizarre contradiction of losing touch while always being connected.
- 'You lose yourself': inside the mental health crisis hitting gen X women: Yeah.