Here’s what my first week of June looked like…

[I’M READING] the Pope’s goddamn (whoops) encyclical about AI, capitalism, the military industrial complex, and pretty much all sins plaguing the world. I’m on Chapter Four right now. Go Catholics? I am quite certain that a decade from now, juniors will be reading passages from the Magnifica Humanica for the APUSH test. I hope so, anyway.

[I’M WRITING] about the sense of normlessness beget by the AI boom in a CNF-ish essay for Gut Instinct Media. I’ve been working on the piece throughout the week, and literally every day there has been some monumental new addition to the policy equation: Anthropic announces it’s going public June 1, Trump dribbles out an Executive Order asking companies to voluntarily share their new AI models with the feds so as not to cause a worldwide cybersecurity meltdown on June 2, and Bernie Sanders calls for a nationwide 50% tax on AI stock on June 3. It’s good to see action being taken, but also, like, damn!

I went to my local library this week to learn more about the data center that is proposed for development in Albany’s South End. This is what experts and advocates told me about the nationwide data center boom.

[I’M RUNNING] the Whipple City 5k (well I just ran it this weekend, past tense) in Bruce and I’s hometown in Upstate NY. Our mom only made me because Bruce is too far away. I was nervous, honestly, even though this was a sweet little I’ll-be-the-only-asshole-in-supershoes type event.

I drive back north to Bruce and I’s hometown: the one where I joined my first cross country team, where I ran the same tangle of streets and backroads every day for something like eight years, where I moved away from. The course was three miles on those same streets and backroads, and honestly, it was psyching me the fuck out. I’m on a racing team now, and I didn’t even have the heart to wear my uniform, because I truly thought the stupid hills I was forced to run iteratively for a decade would defeat me like they often defeated fourteen-year-old me.

But then at the start, they’re lining us all up, and the event organizers encourage the more ambitious runners to the front. Everyone’s hesitating until this guy behind me yells “Fast guys to the front!”

I don’t think. I, as well as this other girl in a similarly all-black kit, step right up.

We take off when the gun clicks, and I think we’re both surprised to a) be leading this thing, and b) be leading this thing with another woman. Nerves make me word vomit, chatting with her like we’re on some Sunday jog, and suddenly we’re both on the same team.

The first mile comes and so does the steep bridge I’ve been dreading. “Jesus,” the girl says.

“It sucks, but it’s short,” I find myself saying. “And then we turn and it’ll be flat.”

I’m telling this outsider that my Hometown Hell Hill isn’t so bad, and I’m actually believing it. We crest it, and the turnaround is a little beyond the top of the peak. When we 180, we’re now passing all of the incoming racers trekking the road we just did, and suddenly all these folks that just came out here for a good time are cheering us on. We hear “Girl Power!” at least five times. It’s actually fucking fun.

Organically, I start to pull away, which is not a thing I’ve done in a while (it’s been a meh few months, training-wise). I’m telling myself I want it more because I actually kind of do. I’m pouring it on, and it sucks, and it’s humid, and my legs are brimming with lactic acid, but I cross this modest finish line in first, and my mom is cheering for me louder than anyone else.

The top three overall finishers of the race were women, and we all invite each other to join our respective team workouts sometime. After, I jog some easy cool-down miles around the village: pass the gas station I’ve peed at a million times, the little league baseball field I watched Bruce strike out in a million times.

I’m really grateful for this 5k, for the girl who ran it with me, and for the stupid hills. In a way, I beat fourteen-year-old me. And I’m ready for our next race.

[I’M NOSTALGIC] because Bruce and I used to live together and sometimes it sucks being 3,000 miles apart. But at least we’re both creative dorks that wanna do things like a joint Substack.

[I LOVE] making fun of Albany as an Albany resident. When I move this summer (?), it’ll just be in bad taste if I keep it up, so I better get it all out while I can.

[I HATE] Albany.

Anyway, all to say, if you’re an eldest daughter/older sister that runs, reads, writes, and worries about whether she’s a good person or not, you’re in the right place. I’ll keep ya updated :)

☾

Subscribe now

★ Liam

It was a dark and stormy night. Everybody was inside. Fireplaces were lit. The heaviest blankets were taken out and dusted off. Dinner had been had and the sun had gone down.

“It all looks quite cozy, but I’m fine right here” Liam stated, looking through a home’s yellow-lit window from the street. He was a cat. Short, grey hair. Yellow eyes. The only cat in Schuylerville, New York that wasn’t afraid of water, let alone the rain. He blended into the dark, blue night quite seamlessly. Once the sun goes down in Schuylerville, there aren’t many sources of light besides a few street lamps and lanterns. The light sources, though few and far in between, reflected off the street on a rainy night such as tonight. At times, if Liam wanted to feel warmer, he’d huddle by these light sources when the rain came, but really, Liam didn’t mind nights like these. Liam was okay with the rain. He’d gotten used to it.

“Does anybody want to hang out?” Liam meowed into the rainy abyss. He repeated it a few times, shifting his head each time to cover as much ground with his voice as possible. Nobody responded. Not a chirp from a bird, a growl from a grizzly bear or even a bark from a dog. Liam wouldn’t even want to hangout with a dog, hypothetically, if they even wanted to hangout, but sometimes he did get lonely on rainy nights when nobody would come out.

“Hint taken!” Liam meowed, then chuckled to himself. “Look at me, right? A sad sight to some, I’m sure. I’m a good looking cat, but nobody wants to hang. Yeesh! My hair is quite rough at times but I can usually get it pretty nice. Some spit and then also a little more spit. That gets my hair flat. They like it flat. Flat hair is nice.” Liam continued to wander through the rainy, empty, damp streets of rural, upstate, New York. “Why doesn’t anybody wanna hang out with me?” He shouted up against the rain again as he trudged. “I have flat, nice hair! How about because it is raining like the wind, Liam!” He shouted to himself. Then went on to add “and you are also the only one of the cats out of all the cats who is cool with getting wet. Remember that, yes. It is not personal. You are okay with being alone. You have been for a while and it is all okay still.” Liam didn’t have the best grammar. Cats tend not to. (No formal education.)

Liam had been alone for quite some time. He was his mother, Willow’s only kitten. She was struck and taken by a car when Liam was very young. Liam didn’t remember how old because he doesn’t know how numbers work. (Again, practically no education available for cats). Liam had been on his own since. He loved when his mother was still with him. His mother used to make memories with him by the creek in Schuylerville, Liam’s place of birth. They would sleep there at night, curled up with each other in the bushes. They’d swim in the Battenkill river at times to bathe, but other times just for recreation. He thinks that may be the root of his braveness and courage on the whole water thing.

Liam decided to take a walk through the rain to the river. He enjoyed doing that on nights like tonight when he felt a bit lonely. He felt that if he was there, his mother was there too. Physically? No. Metaphorically? A lil’ bit. So, he took a stroll through Schuylerville to get there. His paws were sopping wet, squishing with each step, but he did not mind. Every now and then he’d shake like a dog to get the water off of his fur. He was still a bit wet after that, but soon after he was overwhelmed with joy after seeing his own reflection in the creek. It was the best of both worlds. He could see what he looked like so he could perfectly get his hair nice and flat, but at the same time he could listen to the pitter patter of the rain on the river. Then, the rain started to drown out by a loud rumbling. Wasn’t thunder, or anything like that. This was man made. Then, his reflection grew muffled as the waves of the river grew choppy.

“Hey!” Liam heard. He looked up. What he saw was something he’d never seen in all of his cat years. A boat. A particular kind. A house boat. There were two middle aged people, a man in a green rain coat and a woman in a red rain coat. Their waists were pressed against the railing, leaning out towards the water in Liam’s direction. Liam didn’t say anything in response.

“What’s up, buddy!” The woman shouted. “Looking a bit wet this evening, aren’t we?”

“Are you talking to me?” Liam questioned. He couldn’t believe it. He simply could not believe it. How was he even visible? Why did they stop? Why him? “Possibly the flat fur” he thought. Their boat stopped a bit of a distance from the shoreline. Liam hadn’t moved.

“We’re the Petersons,” the man shouted. “What’s your name?”

“My name?” said Liam. “Around here they call me Liam.”

“He has such a cute meow,” the man said. The woman smiled in agreement. Liam didn’t understand what that meant.

Then, over the next four minutes, Liam watched as the man set out on a different, smaller boat. It seemed to be made of wood. He arrived at the shore and attempted to interact with Liam. He stood on the ground beside them, seemingly shocked that Liam wasn’t running away.

“Would you like to come on board?” asked the man. Liam just stared back.

“What’s he saying?!” shouted the woman from the bigger boat.

“No answer yet!” the man responded.

“I don’t mind the rain,” Liam said. “Really it’s fine.”

The man got back onto the smaller boat. He’d given up hope. He figured Liam wanted to do his own thing and he was about to paddle back to the bigger boat. But then, Liam hopped in.

“I’m sorry,” Liam stated. “Was just a bit hesitant, hope you don’t mind me tagging along.” The man gave Liam a pat on the head and continued to paddle.

Liam boarded the bigger ship and received multiple scratches and pats from both people on board. Once inside the home of the house boat, Liam was wrapped tightly in a towel. He meowed things such as “oh, geez,” and “oh, wow. Okay, thanks,” over and over again. It seemed like this couple loved him with no end. He didn’t mind being out in the rain. He’d gotten quite used to it, but he sure did like being inside with the Petersons.

☾ Manifest Destiny

It was a dark and stormy night. She hated stories in the passive tense, so she seamlessly slipped into the active. More engaging that way, no? More her, at least.

She’s just in a fussy mood, maybe. Six-hour flight and an hour arguing with the rental car fucks (A CRV, really?) for it to be fucking raining in LA.

Honestly, it’s fine. Really. It’s better, even. A much grittier story. That’s why she was doing this, right? She wanted stories. Experiences. And when Rye finally arrives at the party, all anyone’s fucking yapping about is the rain anyway. All latent social anxiety is literally washed away, along with the smog, and it’s subsequently a lot easier to approach Cute Photographer with a platitude like “Can you believe this weather?”

In the morning, the sun’s already cooking the pavement, moisture evaporated like last night never happened. And she sort of wishes it hadn’t; Cute Photographer and her didn’t really click. Er, more specifically, he clicked, she didn’t. But at least he allowed her lodging for the night.

Rye’s been fishing around for the keys to this stupid CRV for minutes now. She grumbles in resignation, drops her tote to the pavement, gets on her knees to really get her hands tossin’ around in there like some tchotchke salad. Finally she feels the cold little piece of steel between a few crumpled dollar bills and loose sticks of gum. Triumphantly, she whips the fob out and clicks the unlock button. The CRV beep-beeps at her, as if to say, Good morning, Rye!

She pats his leathery steering wheel for encouragement. Like he’s yawning mid-stretch, CRV rumbles to life.

Rye’s happy to get outta this place, feeling grateful as she waves goodbye to the house that looked a lot more prestigious shrouded in rain last night.

Before Rye left for the West Coast, she laid an edict for herself: she was not allowed to stay in one place for longer than a few days on this trip. Any longer and she’d develop a reputation. The friend group she floats into will eventually see through her mask, or the club she frequents a few nights in a row will recognize her drunk ass and bar her entry, or the other hotel guests will hear the vocalizations of her midnight trysts and give her the stink eye so intensely that she can’t show her face in the lobby for free coffee anymore. Thus, regardless of whether she’s in a hotel, motel, on a friend’s futon, or in a family member’s guest room, Rye has instilled a three-day maximum stay policy for herself. Though even better to get outta dodge before 24 hours is up.

Rye and CRV careen down the 101 until it eventually devolves into the PCH. The landscape changes gradually, then all at once, from a concrete hellscape to a pseudo-heaven where nature is sovereign and concrete begs forgiveness for its imposition. Rye rolls the windows down now that she’s out of Smog Central, breathes in salty air with melodramatic delight. She sticks her left hand out and lets the surprisingly chilly wind dance between her fingers. Everything’s orange and yellow in LA. Everything’s green and blue now that she’s coasting up Highway 1.

Her next scheduled stop was going to be her aunt’s house in Silicon Valley. Aunt Martha is wealthy; her and her husband made a good chunka change as physicists for Lockheed Martin back in the day, and now get to enjoy the remainder of their retirement next to the hipster families that inhabit the Google HQ campus. Rye is delighted at the prospect of sleeping in a warm bed for free. But making the drive from LA to SV in a single day would be arduous. Necessitates a midpoint.

Funnily enough, Rye had been hitting on this other guy when Cute Photographer started chatting her up. Other Guy was tall, slightly muscular, aloof in an aspiring model sorta way. But Photographer seemed nice enough, though more rugged and earnest than his angel-faced friend. She slowly shifted targets when Photographer’s eagerness indicated a strong possibility of a warm bed to sleep in that night.

She’d passively mentioned that she was here on a cross-country road trip, having recently been let go from her already less-than-lucrative copywriting job. Yes, she was by herself. Yes, she drove all the way here from Vermont. Yes, that was a lie. Yes, of course sh’ll be lonely on the road. Yes, her parents helped her out with money a bit. She’d anticipated all these questions, had answers scripted once she touched down at LAX. People are so predictable, which is why Rye knew she’d be able to float in and out of people’s lives on this trip like a socialite wraith. Photographer asked her all of the aforementioned. But then he went off script. Where have you camped out already? Where are you going next? Do you sleep in your car?

He travels for work a lot, he explained. He and his friends camp along the PCH all the time.

Rye got a twinkle in her eye then, flashed him a lecherous smile so he at least had the idea of a quid pro quo implanted in his mind. She batted her eyelashes when she asked him where she should stay as a pit stop between there and Silicon Valley. He pulled out his phone with boyish glee and went to Google Maps, played around with zooming in and out until he could put a pin in the campsite he was picturing.

“Here, I’ll text it to you,” he offered with forced nonchalance. “What’s your number?”

Rye smiled saccharine and shrugged, typed her (914) phone number into his contacts. He sent her the location immediately after.

“You’ll have to text me and let me know what you think of it,” Photographer had said. She’s pretty sure his name was Luke, but it didn’t matter then and it doesn’t now.

“For sure!” she’d thanked him, even squeezed his arm a little.

Now, Rye and CRV crest a hill and hug a sharp turn. Gravity tosses up the paper maps and used napkins that were scattered in the passenger seat.

There it is, that big expansive blue ocean. Waves crash against rocks like trash in the back of a garbage compactor. Boughs of grass shimmer in the wind like they, too, are water. She’s smiling. She bets CRV is too.

GPS suddenly announces that she’s arrived at her destination. Rye looks around, confused, but sees an outcropping of trees a bit further down the road that look like the entryway to a little path toward the beach. Coordinates must’ve been off.

She pulls over and there’re only three spots in this little side lot, two already filled (a Toyota pickup and a Subaru Outback). Rye parks and turns the car off. An easterner, she’s dying to explore this western beach, if only for ten minutes to snap a picture (Photographer! Right!) before it becomes impossibly dark. But when she hops down toward the trail, she clocks signs posted all over the gate and the wood posts that declare there is NO OVERNIGHT CAMPING, per some recently passed county ordinance. Photographer must not have known about this.

Rye frowns. She never was big on following—hence her recent unemployment—and didn’t like being barred from stuff she wanted to do—hence her recent unemployment. She glances over at the beach, sees two sets of couples traipsing back toward this tiny lot as the daylight quickly dissipates behind them. Rye grumbles in frustration and turns back to CRV. She’ll go to the beach in the morning, then, as long as she doesn’t get arrested for trespassing or something.

Rye pops open CRV’s hatchback and climbs into a mess of blankets, pillows, and granola bar wrappers. She can’t help but notice the anxiety building in her gut, twinging her extremities. Smartly, she decides to calm herself down by cracking open a can from the six-pack she stole. She sips the bitter drink and tries to distract herself with a book, since she has absolutely no cell service here.

The couples are back from the beach and proclaim their presence with the beep-beep of unlocked cars. They clock Rye by herself, flannelled, and drinking beer in the backseat of a car, and decidedly ignore her. The cars pull out—one, two—and suddenly, she is overtly, acutely, alone.

Rye looks up from her book. It’s dark now and crickets chirp to remind her she’s not the only living thing in this little slice of the planet, though it sure might look that way. She’s surprised at how tipsy she’s gotten on just half of a tallboy; probably more dehydrated than she realized. Drinking water on the road just means having to stop and piss every hour, and that eats up gas, time, and thus, money.

Rye doesn’t like to admit any of her faults, so rather than acknowledge that she is getting really fucking nervous about staying here overnight, parked directly perpendicular to the NO OVERNIGHT CAMPING warnings plastered all around her little lot, she decides to hit the hay. At nine PM.

Rye wriggles under one of her blankets and stares up at the plastic ceiling of her car. Her heart is beating fast, but surely that’s just from the alcohol. Without moving her head, she feels around the backseat for her taser. She left it back here somewhere.

After a moment she finds it hidden under a rumple of blankets and holds it tight against her beating heart. She is safe, she reminds herself. The parking lot’s empty, after all. Nobody can hurt her.

Rye forces her eyes shut and counts sheep. She reaches one hundred and eighty-two sheep before her mind gives up and switches gears, decides to play her some movies instead. Ooh, look, here’s a nice, calming image of Other Guy from the party! Isn’t that relaxing? What about that one quarry worker back in Vermont that you hooked up with before you left? Nice, hmm? Or how about your ex-boyfriend? Well, the version of him before he told you that you overthink too much! Joke’s on him, because now you don’t think too much about anything you do, don’t you? Isn’t that calming?

It sort of works, until Rye hears a twig snap outside of CRV. She jolts up, clamps her hands around her taser, but she can’t see anything out the windows, shrouded in night’s black veil. She inhales, exhales. Just a deer or something. She’s safe. Nobody’s here.

Nobody’s here! How reassuring, says Brain. She reclines back into her blankets and reminds herself that it would be impossible to not notice if, say, a police car pulled into this side lot, or a caravan of nomadic cannibals. The headlights would flash or the rumbling of engines would make any potential danger known.

But Brain betrays her. That asshole! Instead of placating sheep or boys, it’s hypotheticals. Could a cannibal, hypothetically, break into her car without her realizing? If she falls asleep, would she be too deep into REM to wake up when they shove a wire hanger through her window, unlock her door, and yank her out by the toes to eat her up?

It’s the image of bald and bearded Cannibal Man, opening wide to chomp down on her toes, that gets her. She can’t do this. It’s NO OVERNIGHT CAMPING for a reason. Probably the cannibals.

Rye scrambles over the center console and lumbers into the driver’s seat. “Wake up, buddy,” she entreats CRV, too frantic to properly apologize for interrupting his slumber. “We can’t stay here.”

Rye zooms into the midnight ether, hunched over the steering wheel like an eighty-year-old who should’ve failed their license renewal exam. She can only see about ten feet in front of her, even with her high beams on. Fuck you, she says telepathically to Not That Cute Photographer.

She drives in the direction of civilization, muscle memory backtracking from whence she came. After twenty slightly hyperventilating minutes she sees an exit sign and veers off, hoping the cannibals didn’t follow her all this way. She peters along a county road until—Thank Fuck—there’s lights. She sees a sign for the San Simeon Resort, which seemed a generous name for the one-story roadside motel she pulls up to. The parking lot was full. Rye parks in a handicap spot.

She hurries into the motel and waits for the unhurried couple before her to finish checking in. She shifts her weight onto different legs, back and forth like a toddler who has to pee. Finally the Midwesterners thank the clerk and waddle out the door.

“Hi,” Rye greets, exasperated. She plants her hands on the wooden desk. “I’m kind of stranded,” she explains, rolling her eyes. She hopes the gal behind the desk finds her sympathetic. “I will take any vacant room ya got. Any price.”

The girl cocks her lips to the side, as if to say, Aw shucks. “Sorry, we’ve got no vacancy.” Rye feels her heart fall into her ass. Then the girl delivers the second blow of a one-two punch. “It’s July 3rd, and you’re kitty-corner to Big Sur, so there’s not gonna be any vacancy anywhere within an hour’s drive of here, hun.”

Rye opens her mouth, hoping it’ll help her think of a solution. She glances at her phone. No service, still. She could try looking online, maybe? “Okay, could I… like, stay for a minute?” she asks, gesturing vaguely to the Ikea-furnished waiting area behind her.

Front desk girl checks her watch. “Uh, sure, but we close the lobby in ten minutes.” And then, the knockout punch when she sees Rye take out her phone: “And we don’t have WiFi, sorry.”

Rye considers murdering this girl. “Okay, thank you,” she tosses over her shoulder like an empty soda can. She revs up CRV again. He’s probably tuckered out, but so is she, goddammit.

She tries to think of other options. Uhg, thinking. She’s on this trip so she doesn’t have to do that anymore. She just wants to feel safe somewhere, is that too much to ask for? Safe. What’s safe? Inside a bank, she supposes, but that’s not very feasible. A hospital? Rye considers snapping back her pinkie or something to force admittance, but you’d probably need something more serious like a broken leg or ruptured spleen to score a hospital bed overnight, and that seemed more trouble than it was worth.

She’d have to suck it up and find another place to sleep in CRV. She pulls away from the motel, flips the bird at every car in the parking lot, and meanders into this tiny town. She passes dark and dimly lit houses where residents must live. She wonders what life would feel like, being so rooted somewhere. Was it worth giving up all for one? How could one ever decide?

Rye drives past a big brick building. There are no lights on inside or anything, save a few solar-powered lampposts scattered within the parking lot. A school!

It doesn’t get much safer than that. There are lights, there are security cameras, and there’s secured seclusion from the rest of this fine little community. And the parking lot is empty!

Rye smiles with relief as she pulls into a spot at the far edge of the lot. No cannibals would set up shop on a school campus. The calories-expended-to-calories-consumed ratio is too discrepant. She kills the engine and crawls into her nest in the backseat. She grabs her taser again, more for the reminder of its protectiveness than any real need for a weapon. The nearest lamppost emanates a calm orange like her own little overhead night light. Rye curls up under the blankets and smiles winsomely, imagining sheep and boys and the comfy linens that await her at Aunt Martha’s tomorrow.

Rye wakes up to abrupt, impatient rapping against CRV’s window. A bright beam of white is being shone unforgivingly into her eyes, so harsh she has to shield them with her hand. Her eyes adjust to the shape of a flashlight, being held up by a hulky man in uniform. “Ma’am,” his voice booms. “You cannot sleep here. You are trespassing.”

He clicks off his flashlight, jabs his thumb behind him—the direction of Anywhere But Here. “You gotta go somewhere else.”

Rye doesn’t have anywhere else to go.

Subscribe now