7/15 The kids are getting subscriptions from us for some quality AI (okay, Claude) so they can have maximum exposure to it and not be restricted by yesterday’s technology.
My daughter read two pieces in the writing group tonight, and they were good ones.
7/14 As the heat will make it impossible to do just about anything in the city – no run in the morning, no bike trip to the Little Red Lighthouse, no meeting of friends for my daughter – we decided we might as well drive to Newburgh, even if just for two days.
Looking at the essay, it may be a bit ridiculous that I feel “almost done” just because I have written down all the material. It is absolutely unclear how this needs to be written down. Consider Kertész taking decades to understand how to write Fatelessness. Then again, consider the writers of whom I read excellent pieces week by week.
7/13 First run along the Hudson with my daughter, in the morning at 6.30. We had to pause and fall into walking along the way, and I won’t say due to whom. I can see how my arc is declining while hers is rising. Could I still attempt to run a personal best at 5k now, some five years after my current best? Yes, I do believe that I could, but I’d have to invest months of training and let go of other things just to get there (piano, says J), and I just need to decide what I care for most.
7/12 I am literally frightened when I see my daughter operate TikTok at a speed easily 4 times faster than I could, almost as if it was a part of her body, a new limb. Then I see her reading a paper book, then I see her writing 1,000 words a day, a new commitment she has set for herself.
7/11 Gothenburg. My body made only very limited use of the lay-flat suite in Delta One. Got maybe an hour or two of sleep out of the six-hour flight. In compensation, in my room here at the airport hotel, into which I checked in at noon, I spent a full eight hours of sleep almost uninterrupted, quite unusual for me.
7/10 Finally learned how to use my Global Upgrade Certificates and landed in Delta One. This funny one-upmanship in luxury. With the insane miles I fly and money I spend to be with the kids (look how I’m apologizing), it’s common now for me to be in airport lounges.
This one now, which is supposed to be a lounge’s lounge, is one where you don’t need to go somewhere to get yourself a free drink; there are waiters trying to read every wish from your eyes, and they will go get you a drink. The check-in counter is more of an office where you sit down at a desk in comfy chairs and discuss with an agent how to proceed with your flight. At my seat there’s a pink MISSONI bag that J – after I sent her a photo – begs me to save for her.
I still think that with all this wealth in my life, there is probably yet another episode ahead of me where I will pack paper bags at a supermarket register.
7/9 Reading the essay to the group last night – and I read only the first page of it – was a big push. I have never felt so capable of actually writing.
7/8 I don’t feel at home on any of the platforms anymore. I want to be on all of them.
7/7 They used to say: 30 years, 40 years ago, and it meant nothing to me. Now I say: 30 years, 40 years ago, and I know it means nothing to them. The laughable immediacy of these things, and their astounding remoteness.
7/6 Back into Manhattan in rain, first thing I note is the elevated noise due to cars driving on wet pavement.
The fact that I’m only going to Manhattan for doctor visits now makes Manhattan rather unpleasantly associated with doctor visits.
Well, next week I’m bringing the kids here.