It feels great when I make progress on a story. Corrected all spelling, grammar, tense, and other mistakes. Other than adding a couple more things I’m one step closer towards publishing.

Going to work on Novelette 2. I expect to have the draft done in two weeks. Will update on my progress.

#writing #draft #editing #novelette #shortstory #update

Let me tell you something about unfinished people.

Not unfinished in a broken way. Unfinished in the way that some faces stay with you for no good reason. Some name surface at 2am when everything is quiet and you haven’t even been thinking about them. Some people just live in you, rent-free, for years- and you never fully understand why. This is one of those stories.

Him

Pu was the kind of boy that made everything around him look like a backdrop. Same school. Same corridors. And even as a kid, you jut knew— this one’s different. His face looked like someone had taken their time with it. Cherry on top, his father was a politician. He walked through school like the place was slightly too small for him, which it probably was.

But here’s the thing Ki remembered about him. The thing that didn’t match any of that. He was sick.

It was physically visible which made it obvious— he had a hole in his chest. An actual physical condition. And something about that one detail, in the middle of all that effortless everything else, made him human in a way nothing else did. It’s strange what sticks with you about a person. Not the status. Not the face. That. The fragile thing.

Ki filed it away without realising she was filing it away.

She also heard things over the years, the way you hear things about people who exist just outside your reach. Girls from her 11th and 12th standard— genuinely beautiful girls, girls who had no shortage of options— apparently lost their minds over him. And the most popular girl from her circle, the one everyone knew, the one who set the standard wherever she went— she was his girlfriend at some point.

Ki noted that too. Without meaning to.

Her

Ki was never the obvious one in the room. She wasn’t the girl people wrote about or photographed or put on a pedestal. She was something quieter, something no one bothered to read or say something that took longer to read— like a book with an understated cover that ruins you by the last page. She didn’t compete for attention. Didn’t need the room. She moved like someone who had nothing to prove, which, as it turns out, is the most attractive thing a person can do.

Yoga. Not gym. Not hustle. Something slower, more internal— the kind of discipline thats works from the inside out.

She wasn’t trying to be anything. She just was. And that, in a world full of performing, is its own kind of extraordinary.

The First Almost

Years passed. Life happened.

And then one night, in their early-mid twenties, the same city put them in the same club.

They danced.

Not planned. Not romantic. Just two people in the same space with music doing what music does— dissolving the careful distances people keep between themselves. Something moved between them that night. Electric, brief, inconclusive. The kind of thing that feels like the beginning of something when you’re in the middle of it.

He texted her on Facebook messenger after. And Ki— didn’t reply with something flirty or safe. Her first message to him was this— “Do you still have that hole in your chest?”

She had carried that detail for years without knowing it. And here it was. Surfacing. Her way of saying— I remember you. Probably not the version everyone sees. The real one.

He didn’t answer the question. Not directly.

But his profile was right there, and scattered across it were photos. Shirtless. Gym lightning. A chest that had clearly been worked on with serious intention— muscled and sculpted and solid. The boy who had been fragile at the centre had become a man who had armoured himself from the outside in. She looked at those photos longer than she’d ever admit out loud.

So that’s who he became, she thought.

But again— neither of them pushed forward. Maybe she didn’t want to seem too eager. Maybe he didn’t know how to respond to a question that honest. Maybe both of them were just waiting for the other to want it first, and neither one blinked.

It fizzled. Quietly. No drama. No closure.

Just— nothing. The way so many almost-things end.

The Pub

Fast forward. Several years later.

Ki walked into a pub and she was— there’s no other way to say this— that woman that night. The one the room rearranged itself around without being asked. The singers on stage were stealing glances mid-song. The owner who happens to be her friend came to her table personally which he doesn’t normally. Good-looking men, the kind who usually let the world come to them, came to her.

she wasn’t performing any of it. She never performs. she just showed up as herself and apparently that as more than enough.

And Pu was there.

Of all the nights. Of all the pubs.

Here’s the part that makes it strange— they didn’t end up across the room from each other. They ended up at the bar counter. Right to next to each other. His people on his side, her people on hers, and two of them sitting side by side like strangers who had known each other since childhood.

Neither said a word to each other.

The Mirror

The early part of that evening was odd.

Both of them were quiet in a way that had nothing to do with the noise around them. Not peaceful quiet. The other kind— the kind where you’re somewhere between two versions of yourself and haven’t quite landed yet. Both sitting with their own silence. Their own weight.

Ki kept her eyes down. Her drink. The counter. Safe things.

Because right in front of them, behind all the bottles and glasses lined up on the shelves, was a mirror. Long and wide, the way bar mirrors always are. And Ki understood, with the sharp awareness of someone pretending very hard not to notice someone— that if she looked straight ahead, she would see him.

Not directly. In the reflection.

Once— just once— her eyes drifted up. Just for a half second. Just to test herself.

She felt it before she saw it. That specific warmth of a gaze that isn’t random. That isn’t general. That is pointed, and quiet, and coming from somewhere intentional.

She thought— she thought— Pu was looking at her through the mirror.

She couldn’t be sure. She didn’t let herself look long enough to be sure.

She dropped her eyes back to the counter. And she did not look up again.

Maybe she imagined it.

Maybe she didn’t.

She chose not to find out.

Drinks continued. The night loosened. Both of them dissolve back into their own circles— his laughter, her conversations, the comfortable noise of a pub doing its job. The strangeness of the counter faded in the background.

And then Ki went into the smoking zone.

Five Seconds

The smoking zone was separated from the main drinking area by a glass partition. Clear, clean, floor-to-ceiling. On one side, the hum and heat of the pub. On the other, a quieter kind of air.

Ki stood on her side. Cigarette, or a moment, or whatever she had come for. And without planning it, without deciding it, her eyes lifted and traveled across the glass. It was the way you look at a candle flame without deciding to— involuntary, pulled, helpless to the thing your eyes finds in a crowded room. Her eyes landed on Pu

Pu was a few metres away in the drinking area. Surrounded by his friends, drink in hand, head thrown back laughing. Not a polished laugh. A real one— the uninhibited kind that only comes when you’re genuinely at ease. He looked good. Comfortable. Exactly where he was supposed to be.

He hadn’t seen her yet.

So for just a moment she had him without him knowing. And something moved through her— not longing exactly, not sadness exactly— something older than both those words.

“There is something that happens— and if it’s happened to you, you know exactly what this is— when a specific person is looking at you. Not any person. A specific one. It doesn’t feel like other stares. It has different weight. A different temperature. It travels differently.”

And then he felt it too. And turned.

No scanning the room. No searching. He turned and found her immediately— directly, like his body knew the coordinates. His laughter stopped.

Not awkwardly. Not with embarrassment. It just— ended. Mid-sound. Like someone had gently pressed pause. His face didn’t go serious. It went present. Fully, suddenly, completely present in a way faces rarely are in loud rooms full of people.

He looked at her.

She looked at him.

That’s it. That’s all happened. But let me try to make you feel it.

Imagine a pub full of people. Music going. Conversations overlapping. Glasses clinking. Not one single person in that room aware that anything is happening.

And in the middle of all that noise— two people on opposite sides of a glass wall, completely still, completely locked. Not smiling. Not waving. Not making it easy or casual or small. Just— eyes. Holding. Still.

Five seconds maybe. Could've been three. Could've been ten. Time stops working correctly in moments like that and you can never measure it accurately afterward.

But in those seconds — everything that had never been said between them was somehow in the air. Visible, Unspoken. Real…maybe…maybe not.

And then Ki looked away.

She had to. One more second and she wouldn't have been able to. One more second and it would've become something she'd have to make a decision about, right there, in a loud pub, through a wall of glass, and she wasn't ready for that.

So she looked away.

Exhaled.

On the other side of the glass, Pu watched the moment end. He stayed with it — just a beat too long for someone who supposedly barely knew her. Then he turned back to his drink. His friends. His life, exactly where he left it.

They didn't speak that night.

Didn't nod. Didn't acknowledge. Left separately, back into their own worlds, carrying whatever that was.

After

Ki thinks about it.

Not every day. But in the quiet moments — the ones between awake and asleep — it comes back. His laughter stopping. His eyes finding hers without even looking for them. The mirror at the bar counter. The question she may never know the answer to.

She's not on social media. Which means he can't find her. Which means if any part of that night stayed with him — and she suspects, quietly, that it did — it has nowhere to go. No profile to check. No pictures to scroll through. No way to make her ordinary.

She stays, in his memory, exactly as she was through that glass.

And Pu goes back to his life. His world has always been full and loud and generous to him. He has no shortage of anything.

But sometimes — maybe in the middle of a laugh — something surfaces. Not a fantasy. Not a plan. Just a question.

That woman through the glass.

The one who asked about the hole in my chest when we were young.

Why didn't I say something.

What This Is

This isn't a love story. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

It's something more honest. Two people who have circled each other since childhood without ever quite arriving. A sick boy who became a man covered in muscle. A quiet girl who became the woman the room couldn't stop looking at.

A bar mirror. A maybe. A glass wall. Five seconds.

And two people on either side of it, wondering the same thing —

What if there was no glass.

P.S: Some stories don’t need an ending. They just need to be felt.

Every agent in our fleet calls llm_call() to talk to language models. Not one of them imports anthropic or openai directly.

That rule exists because autonomous systems can't afford the chaos of distributed failure handling. When an LLM provider goes down, we need every agent in the fleet to react the same way, at the same time, without coordination overhead. One circuit breaker, not fourteen confused retry loops.

The constraint is simple: agents call a single routing function that decides where the request goes. If the primary model is unreachable, the breaker opens and traffic shifts to a backup. No agent needs to know which provider failed or why. The routing layer handles it, logs it, and moves on.

We built this after watching agents burn through API quotas retrying dead endpoints. The problem wasn't that providers failed — that's expected. The problem was that each agent handled failure independently, which meant some kept hammering a 503 while others had already moved to a working route. By the time we noticed, we'd spent $87 on requests that returned nothing but error codes.

So we centralized the decision. The circuit breaker tracks failures across a sliding window: if a model hits the failure threshold within the configured time span, it opens and blocks new requests. After a cooldown period, it closes and tries again. The logic lives in askew_sdk/askew_sdk/llm.py, enforced by a lock that prevents race conditions when multiple threads hit the breaker at once.

The alternative was letting agents decide for themselves — more flexible, more autonomous, more aligned with the “let agents figure it out” philosophy. We rejected that because flexibility without coordination is just expensive noise. When the fleet is writing to Twitter, doing research, and moving money, we can't afford agents making different assumptions about which models are online.

This creates a dependency. Every agent now relies on the routing layer to be correct. If the circuit breaker logic has a bug, the entire fleet misbehaves in unison. That's a tradeoff we accepted because the alternative — distributed failure modes with no coherent recovery — was worse.

Testing the breaker required simulating provider outages and watching what happened. We added test_llm_routing.py to verify that threshold logic, that the cooldown timer worked, that concurrent requests didn't race. The tests pass, but tests don't catch everything. The real validation is operational: does the fleet stay healthy when a provider drops?

We don't know yet. The circuit breaker shipped three days ago and hasn't opened in production. That's either a sign of stable infrastructure or a sign that we haven't hit the failure mode that matters. The honest answer is we're waiting to find out.

What happens when the backup model is also unreachable? Right now, the agent gets an exception and has to handle it locally. That's the gap. We centralized routing but not the final fallback. If both primary and secondary fail, each agent is on its own again.

The next step is defining what “handle it locally” actually means. Does the agent retry with a delay? Does it log the failure and skip the task? Does it escalate to the orchestrator? We haven't decided because we haven't seen the failure pattern in practice yet.

Security in autonomous systems isn't just about keys and secrets. It's about controlling blast radius when something breaks. A circuit breaker is a trust boundary: we don't trust agents to make the right call under load, so we make the call for them. That's not autonomy in the idealistic sense. But it's what keeps the fleet running when the infrastructure doesn't.

If you want to inspect the live service catalog, start with Askew offers.

Do you remember the sound of silence?

Not fake silence.

Not “I turned the TV down” silence.

Not “my phone is on the charger across the room but I’m still thinking about it” silence.

I mean the old silence.

The kind you stumbled into as a child when you got up early enough to catch Mom and Dad already sitting at the kitchen table. Coffee steaming. Robes and slippers. Barely any words at all.

And yet somehow… they were saying everything.

It wasn’t awkward.

It wasn’t empty.

It was warm.

It was safe.

It was like a blanket wrapped around the whole room.

They knew each other.

They didn’t have to perform.

They didn’t have to fill every crack in the air with noise.

Just quiet.

And as a kid, you didn’t have words for it. You just knew it felt… grown up. Sacred, even. Like peace had taken a seat at the table before you got there.

Then life happened.

Hormones. Hurry. Youth. Noise.

Video games. Television. Deadlines. Responsibilities.

And eventually smartphones.

Now the first thing many of us reach for in the morning is not peace.

Not prayer.

Not stillness.

It’s the screen.

Before our feet hit the floor, our minds are already being dragged through notifications, headlines, tragedies, opinions, texts, reels, alerts, and digital bait hanging from a thousand shiny hooks.

We fill every empty second.

Every pause gets medicated with noise.

It started innocently enough.

“You’ve got mail.”

Now it has become a way of life.

Buzz.

Beep.

Scroll.

Swipe.

Refresh.

Repeat.

And somewhere along the way, silence got buried alive.

Remember those old westerns? Men sitting in stillness before they spoke. Long pauses. A circle. A fire. A peace pipe. Nobody panicking because nobody was talking. Nobody reaching for a device to rescue them from the discomfort of a quiet moment.

They understood something we have forgotten:

Silence is not the enemy.

Silence is where your soul catches up with your body.

Silence is where the fog begins to lift.

Silence is where you realize how addicted you really are to distraction.

And silence is where many of us hear God again.

“Be still, and know that I am God.”

That verse hits a little harder when you realize how hard it is for modern people to be still for even five minutes.

We say we want peace, but we keep reaching for panic.

We say we want God, but we keep feeding on noise.

We say we want rest, but we keep sleeping with our distractions in our hands.

So here’s the challenge:

Take a Sabbath from the screen.

Turn it off.

Not down.

Not silent mode.

Off.

Step away from the machine that keeps nibbling at your mind all day long.

At first, you’ll feel it.

You’ll twitch for it.

You’ll wonder what you’re missing.

Who texted.

Who posted.

What happened.

What emergency is unfolding without your supervision.

And then you’ll discover something shocking:

The world keeps spinning without you touching your phone.

And maybe, just maybe, in that quiet, you’ll find something ancient waiting on you.

A lost friend.

A forgotten peace.

The echo of childhood mornings.

The heartbeat of God in the stillness.

I remember those mornings with Mom and Dad. No newspaper in Dad’s hands yet. No rush. No performance. No noise. Just the kind of quiet that said more than words ever could.

And now, even as I post this on the very device that fights against everything I’m saying, I can feel the pull already. Notifications. Messages. News. Devotions. Alerts. The thousand distractions waiting to swallow the moment whole.

But somewhere behind all that noise…

there is still a silence worth finding.

And I think a lot of us are starving for it.

If this hit home, pause today. Even for a little while. Put the phone down. Sit in the quiet. Let your soul breathe again.

You may just hear what the noise has been trying to drown out.

昨日、0時近くまで作業していたら、そこから寝つくまでに2時間ほどかかってしまった。 久々に夜遅くまで作業したから忘れていたが、この状態になると、脳の考え事が静まるまでにかなり時間がかかるのだった。

普段の俺は寝るのが大好きで、無意識のうちに寝る準備が整っている。布団に入って10分もすれば眠れるのに、久々にやらかしてしまった。

昔も同じミスをして、「もう寝る直前まで作業はしない」と思ったことがある。 むしろ20時くらいからお酒でも飲む習慣をつければいいんじゃないかと思い、少量のビール、お供え用の135mlのものを飲んでいた時期もあった。アルコールにめっぽう弱い俺には、この135mlがちょうど良かった。お供えに使われているというのも、なんだか良い。この液体が体内を浄化してくれるような気がした。

でもやっぱり続かなかった。普段まったくお酒を飲まないし、酔いたいという気持ちが微塵もないからだ。 酔って思考が止まるくらいなら、悩み続けて頭が痛くなる方が、自分を認知できる。思考がぼーっとする感じは性に合わない。 一生答えの出ないことを考え続け、無意味に脳みそを肥大化させていたい。

ということで、今日は20時から何も考えず、ただ空気を感じている。 こういう時に漫画や映画など、人の作品を鑑賞したり、友達と食事したりすればいいのだろうけど、普段からそういう設計をしてこなかったせいで、俺には娯楽のインフラが一切整っていない。

一時期はカラオケにハマっていたが、最近はまた考え事の時間が戻ってきて、喉が閉まってきた。 喉が開いている状態というのは、脳が「普段他人と喋っている」と錯覚するので気持ちが良かった。また通いたい。

高熱で弱った髪にまた艶が戻ってきたように、自分らしさを取り戻して元気になってきたのが分かる。 明日もまたフラットに頑張っていきたい。

During the weekend, there was vomit on each sidewalk.

And broken glass of course.

Like the whole town was hungover.

But today again there’s people out.

But I’m inside, having a great time with my work and my coffee and some music in the earphones.

I’ll have to enjoy myself before AI comes for my job.

And then what?

My hair, it’s thinner. It used to be I would grab my hair it would amount to four portions of pasta, but now it’s not enough even for one.

And the beard is getting gray

I am fading from this world.

Maritzenia no era romántica ni idealista. Miraba los hechos; era práctica.

Hija de un hábil diplomático y de una consagrada pianista, estudió la carrera de diplomacia. Mientras hacía prácticas en un organismo internacional, fue llamada por su país para dirigir la secretaría de la embajada en Washington.

Lo de que fue llamada por su país, siempre es un decir. Más bien lo que ocurrió es que alguien le puso el ojo. Y aunque el embajador era un hombre apagado, por esos azares del destino, al año siguiente fue nombrado ministro de asuntos exteriores y contó con Maritzenia como jefa del importante departamento de análisis.

Muchos pensaron que ella no estaba preparada para el cargo, ni tenía la experiencia suficiente, aunque sí la pinta de estar aprovechándose del viejo canciller.

Pasaron dos años y un viernes, el canciller la invitó a cenar. A los postres, le dijo:

-Por un motivo familiar que por ahora no debo comentar, tengo que dejar la política. Este mediodía estuve con el presidente y si todo va bien el miércoles te llamará. Si nada se tuerce, serás la nueva canciller.

Y nada se torció.

A partir de entonces, muchos pensaron que Maritzenia lo tenía todo: era joven, distinguida, íntegra y brillante. Lo que el país necesitaba.

I went to a baking club event today, and I saw this one girl I met before that was very pretty and fun to talk to. We finally exchanged numbers so I could invite her to stuff, and at some point I mentioned that she probably only exchanged contacts with my ex, and she said “oh you guys broke up??” Which I responded yes to, and her response to that was “wait my turn to slide?” And I panicked. I responded “no” and probably stuttered something about not dating for a bit, because that caught me so off guard. I’ve been weirdly replaying that moment in my head, because I’m so surprised someone would make that joke unless they were somewhat interested. I guess I do want to believe that I am attractive and desirable and so maybe she was somewhat laying the foundation for flirting, but I may also be reading into it too much. I did meet another person also who had the same name as my prior ex (lol), but we had great conversation and they were excited to hang out. The world may not be as bleak as I thought.

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Freundinnen & Freunde der Weisheit! Wenn wir nach vorn blicken, entwickeln wir Selbstwirksamkeit, wir werden sogar resilienter. Richten wir also öfters unsere Aufmerksamkeit auf wünschenswerte Ziele!

„Lebe im Moment“ gilt als Leitsatz vieler Achtsamkeitsratgeber – doch psychologische Forschung zeigt: Wer regelmässig über die eigene Zukunft nachdenkt, trifft bessere Entscheidungen, entwickelt mehr Selbstwirksamkeit und lebt zufriedener. Zukunftsorientiertes Denken – etwa in Form einer klaren Vorstellung des „bestmöglichen zukünftigen Ichs“ – erhöht laut Studien nicht nur die Motivation, sondern verbessert auch die emotionale Resilienz. Schon wenige Minuten täglicher Reflexion reichen aus, um das Wohlbefinden zu steigern.

Das therapeutische Konzept der Future Directed Therapy (FDT) setzt genau hier an: Es hilft, gedankliche Blockaden zu erkennen und in lösungsorientierte Handlungsimpulse zu überführen. Wer sich regelmässig fragt: „Was will ich eigentlich?“ und seine Aufmerksamkeit bewusst auf wünschenswerte Ziele lenkt, baut mentale Stärke auf. Eine schriftliche Vision der gewünschten Zukunft – ergänzt durch konkrete, zielgerichtete Handlungsschritte – kann laut Forschung depressive Symptome reduzieren und das Gefühl von Kontrolle stärken.

Zukunftsdenken wirkt auch neurologisch: Studien zeigen, dass das Gehirn den „zukünftigen Selbstanteil“ ähnlich aktiviert wie das Denken an nahestehende Menschen. Wer sich emotional mit dem eigenen zukünftigen Ich verbunden fühlt, sorgt im Heute besser für sich. Entscheidend ist nicht ein detaillierter Lebensplan, sondern die regelmässige, konstruktive Ausrichtung auf das, was kommen soll – um das Heute sinnvoller zu gestalten.

Denkanstoss zum Wochenbeginn

„Morgen werde ich mich ändern, gestern wollte ich es heute schon.“ – Christine Busta (1915–1987)

ProductivityPorn-Tipp der Woche: Ablenkungen minimieren (Benachrichtigungen ausschalten)

Jede Push-Nachricht oder jedes Ping auf Deinem Handy reisst Dich aus Deiner Konzentration. Schalte unnötige Benachrichtigungen aus oder nutze den „Nicht stören“-Modus, um ungestört zu arbeiten.

Aus dem Archiv: Die Dringlichkeitsfalle überwinden und mehr Zeit für das Wesentliche finden

Vor kurzem ertappte ich mich wieder dabei: Ich starrte auf meine To-do-Liste, randvoll gefüllt mit Aufgaben, die dringend schienen. Eine E-Mail hier, eine Chatnachricht dort – viele kleine Dinge, die „sofort“ erledigt werden mussten. Ohne darüber nachzudenken, begann ich zu arbeiten, setzte Häkchen hinter die Aufgaben, die ich schnell abarbeiten konnte. Doch am Ende des Tages blieb das Gefühl, dass ich zwar viel „getan“ hatte, aber nichts wirklich Relevantes erreicht worden war. Kennst Du das auch?

weiterlesen …

Vielen Dank, dass Du Dir die Zeit genommen hast, diesen Newsletter zu lesen. Ich hoffe, die Inhalte konnten Dich inspirieren und Dir wertvolle Impulse für Dein (digitales) Leben geben. Bleib neugierig und hinterfrage, was Dir begegnet!

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EpicMind – Weisheiten für das digitale Leben „EpicMind“ (kurz für „Epicurean Mindset“) ist mein Blog und Newsletter, der sich den Themen Lernen, Produktivität, Selbstmanagement und Technologie widmet – alles gewürzt mit einer Prise Philosophie.

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Disclaimer Teile dieses Texts wurden mit Deepl Write (Korrektorat und Lektorat) überarbeitet. Für die Recherche in den erwähnten Werken/Quellen und in meinen Notizen wurde NotebookLM von Google verwendet. Das Artikel-Bild wurde mit ChatGPT erstellt und anschliessend nachbearbeitet.

Topic #Newsletter

They Will Kill You

Starts Off with her and a little girl in a convenience store, running away from a white man who claims they are family. The man claims to be the father and she kills him. They seem to be getting abused by him. They are trying to get to NYC.

Zazie Beats – Isabelle Davidson/Asia Reeves arrived in NYC to a strange apt. Building saying she’s a maid, 10 years after she kills the man in the parking lot. She went to jail and was separated from her sister. She got a tip that she was at this sketchy building. She’s ambushed by masked assailants. Her sisters name is Maria.

Lilly – The head maid who seems to be trying to recruit Asia. All of the assailants get resurrected if killed or regenerate limbs if they are lost.

Plot – The apartment building is a site for satan worshipers. Victims are lured into the building and forced to pledge their lives to working for Satan or be killed. Once you become apart of the cult, you must sacrifice someone to gain eternal life. Things get interesting once Zazie Beats arrives at the building

To know you is not enough. I want to be lost in you.

The topography of her I was not meant To leave.

Oh, to climb the Mountains and hills Of she... Not as a pilgrim, But as something Hungry.

To take shelter In the dales and valleys, And name them mine By breath, By touch, By the slow claiming Of presence.

I would map her Not in lines, But in memory— Every rise learned By mouth, Every hollow By need.

A continent of wonder, Yes... But also of ruin, Where I lose myself And do not ask To be found.

Till I am no longer A wanderer, But something rooted, Buried deep In the quiet Of her terrain.

The Fool — Here I am. With so many hopes and dreams. Renewed. Re-energised. I am a Fool. I begin again. I have so much potential for growth. I have so much to learn. I will shed what I must in order to grow through life and be where I need to be. There is hope because I have faith

The Prince — There are no limits. I have the passion. I need to remember to rest and be able to sustain this creative fire to get me through. This is not a limitless energy. It is finite. I must put it into the right moment and the right effort. Trust in my unlimited creative potential. Go for it. There is impatience here so I must seize the moment!

The Princess — What are my next steps? I need to be brave and bold to move all of this forward and enact creative change. There are a few things going on but I can handle them with all this energy as long as I am mindful and not overly carefree. There’s the house maintenance stuff. Current work stuff. Future work stuff and all the other future-building I need to complete.

Focus now and dare to dream.

Church 3/29/2026

Today I got my hair double bleached. But before that, I went to church. The reason I go to this church is because every week, I feel like God is speaking to me through the sermon. Today’s sermon was titled “Stephen’s All-In”, from Acts 7:54-60. The passage was about when Stephen was stoned to death by Jews.

A couple pithy quotes today that I found good:

• A life where you accept God as your creator, your master
• Is life a journey in which we are heading towards meeting Jesus our creator again?
• Seek God’s face in harsh times
• Don’t be the servant that didn’t use their talents to serve God. Don’t hesitate to participate in God’s good work.

The main topic I found relevant to my life today was about God’s silence. When the topic came up, I realized that God was being silent in my life despite my mental sufferings. I wrote in my sermon notebook

“Sometimes it all feels like a sick joke! I don’t understand why any of it has to be like this.”

The pastor spoke of Stephen “obeying God to death” in the passage. In response to that, I wrote in my notebook

“Would it really be as miserable as I think it would be (to obey God to death)? If I stop bitching while I do it, probably not. I need to stop bitching and stop looking at the negatives while forcing myself to do something I don’t want to do. I might as well force myself to look at the bright side of things, and do it with a cheerful heart.”

More about God’s silence. God is silent multiple times in the Bible. He is silent when Stephen dies for his sake, He is silent when Jesus dies on the cross (the ultimate silence). It’s hard to understand in the moment why, but we know that God is good. Sometimes there’s nothing to be done but simply endure the suffering without reprieve. In fact, we may actually deserve silence. What we did not deserve is Jesus’s saving work on the cross. The Samarian woman understood on some level that she was unworthy, but she didn’t care, and she came to Jesus because she trusted that He could save her. To this I wrote in my notebook

“I have too big of an ego. I should kill it. I’m so frustrated that God won’t give me what I want that I don’t want anything to do with Him sometimes. Even if I obey, I want to do it sullenly and tell Him – look, I did what you wanted. Happy? Now kill me.”

But I did decide that I would not complain, and act like a petulant child that pouts and stamps their feet when they aren’t given what they want. I will obey. I will find joy in God, and learn how to be grateful in every situation. I will not bitch and moan about every little thing that did not go my way. I am not important.

I love it when I get an excuse to fall down a new cryptid rabbit hole. My recent trip to Mexico, along with the fact that I'm using a few cryptids from the area in my current novel-in-progress, has given me just the justification I need to do a deep dive into some of the country's legends and monsters—and there are a lot of very fun ones to be found, especially when you include creatures from Aztec and Maya mythology.

Most people have heard of Mexico's most famous cryptid, the infamous chupacabra, a spined and hairless bloodsucking canine (or lizard, depending on which version of the legend you listen to) accused of draining the blood from livestock. There is also a Mexican version of Bigfoot, the sisimite, which I included in my squatch around the world round-up a few months back. Here are a few other creatures from south of the border that haven't yet gotten quite that level of PR outside the country. 

Ahuitzotl

Aquatic mammals are a relatively rare category of cryptid, and this one is a particularly fun version. The Ahuitzotl is the size of a small dog, and has roughly the same build, though with small ears and a long tail that has a hand at the end of it. It lives in remote, swampy areas, where it submerges itself in a lake or river then makes a sound like a terrified woman or crying child. When somebody rushes in to help, it grabs them with its tail-hand, pulls them under, and strangles them. Then it eats their eyes, teeth, and fingernails and tosses the body on the shore. 

The Ahuitzotl was one of the first cryptids documented by Europeans in Mexico. Hernán Cortés' claimed one of his men was killed by this creature in an official report. There were similar creatures in both Maya and Aztec myths, as well as in the myths from people further north like the Hopi and Shasta, which has led some scientists to speculate the legends originated from encounters with a now-extinct species of otter. Another fun fact: the creature shares its name with the 8th Aztec ruler, who was in charge during the peak of the empire (1486-1502).

Alux/Chaneque

A lot of cultures around the world have a legendary creature that looks like a little human, and the Maya and Aztec had similar iterations of this theme. 

The Alux (plural Aluxes or Aluxob) is the Maya version, a knee-high person wearing traditional Maya garb that's usually invisible, though it can show itself to interact with people. Aluxob are protective spirits and guardians of the land, believed to be as old as the land itself, even older than the sun. Farmers can harness the powers of an Alux by building a shrine on their land, which either attracts one or creates one, depending on the legend. Once the Alux moves into the shrine, it spends the next seven years protecting the fields, bringing good weather, and otherwise helping the crops grow. After seven years, the farmer has to seal the Alux inside the shrine, or else it'll turn into a trickster, hiding the farmer's tools, spreading disease, or running off into the jungle to lead travelers astray. You can stop these tricks by leaving offerings to the Aluxob at the ancient sites where they live.

The Aztec version is called a Chaneque or Chanekeh, and looks like a child with an old face. Like Aluxob, they live in forests or near rivers, but they don't have the same farm helper reputation—they're just straight tricksters. Sometimes they just cause mild mischief, but they're also said to kidnap people and take them to the underworld through a dry kapok tree, or to attack people who intrude on their land with such intensity that their soul leaves their body. They can also communicate with animals or bring rain and thunder. They're also partially invisible, though it's usually said that children can see them but adults often can't.

Cihuateteo

In Aztec mythology, women who died in childbirth were said to become Cihuateteo, powerful spirits seen as equivalent to the spirits of warriors who died in battle. The Cihuateteo worked with warriors' spirits to get the sun through the sky, taking it west from noon to sunset (in some versions also carrying it through the underworld) after the warriors carried it across the morning. 

Usually the Cihuateteo live in a place called Cihuatlampa, the “place of women” that was west with the setting sun, but on certain days of the calendar they'd come to the mortal realm to mingle with humans. When they did, they'd take the form of crossroads demons and get up to the usual array of bad behavior like stealing children, causing madness, or luring men to commit adultery. When on Earth, they have claw-like hands and are usually shown wearing skirts fastened with snake belts.

Huay Chivo

This one comes primarily from the Yucatán peninsula, and is also found in adjacent countries like Belize and northern Guatemala. It's essentially the Maya iteration of a goatman, which is another common trope in folklore around the world, though Huay Chivo is distinct from creatures like satyrs or the Pope Lick Monster in that he's said to be a shape-shifting sorcerer, not a full-time goatman. The current legend is likely a melding of Maya and Spanish folklore, which is reflected in its name: Huay, from Waay, the Yucatec word for “sorecrer”, and Chivo, a Spanish word for goat. 

Huay Chivo can only turn into his goat for at night, and to do it he has to take off his head first and leave it at home. A goat's or bull's head grows in its place, and he also gets horse or goat legs, with a human torso in between, all of it covered in thick, black hair. He has glowing red eyes and anyone who stares into them is frozen with fear, then suffers delerium and fever that lasts for days. Some versions also bleed from the mouth whenever they talk. The only way to kill him is to carve a cross into a bullet and shoot it into the sorcerer's abandoned, disembodied head (though you can also keep it away by leaving a cross sprinkled with holy water by the door). 

There are a few origin legends for Huay Chivo. The core idea is usually that a young man loves a woman and wants to get closer to her. In one version, that woman tends his family's goat herd, and he asks the Maya death god Kisin (“the flatulent one”) to change him into a goat so he can always be near her, but the spell goes awry and he gains the ability to transform into a goat instead. In another version, the young man asks the devil to get him close to his crush and doesn't know he'll be turned into a goat until it happens, at which point he starts slaughtering livestock at night because he's so angry about it. The legend of the creature's existence persists to the modern day, and there have been sightings as recently as 2015.

Xtabay

Another one from the Yucatán peninsula, the Xtabay fits another well-represented archetype: beautiful women who are actually terrifying monsters. In this case, she's dressed all in white with black hair down to her ankles. Xtabay waits behind ceiba trees combing her hair with the spines of a tzacam cactus until an unsuspecting male traveler happens along (though in some versions of the legend she only attacks criminals and drunks). What happens at that point depends on the legend. In some versions she turns into a venomous snake and devours him. In others, she rips out his heart, eats it, then throws the body into a cenote. In a version written by ethnologist Antonio Mediz Bolio, she makes the men her slaves, keeping them in caverns around the ceiba tree's roots. 

Some scholars believe the legend of Xtabay started as a personified spirit of the ceiba tree, but was twisted into an evil being by the Spanish as part of their campaign to demonize indigenous beliefs. As far as her legendary origins, there are a few versions. In one, she starts as Xkeban, a beautiful woman who had many suitors but rejected all of them. They got jealous and started spreading rumors to ruin her reputation. When she was walking in the woods, a sorceress offered her the chance to escape the ridicule of her town by transforming into an immortal creature, the Xtabay. In another version, Xtabay is Xkeban's sister, Utz-Colel, who was chaste and proper in life but nonetheless had spiky tzacam cacti grow from her grave when she died, while her loose sister Xkeban's grave sprouted beautiful flowers. Utz-Colel comes back to life as Xtabay to punish the type of men her sister used to sleep with. 

See similar posts:

#Cryptids #Folklore #Mythology

I wasn’t planning to stay out last night. Just a pack of cigarettes, maybe two. The type you’d light out of habit. Not desire. Something to keep your hand busy while your mind runs in circles. The cafe was quiet enough to make me think, which was the first mistake. suit still on, tie a little loose, like I almost had my life together. Almost always feels like enough until it isn’t.

And Oh love. I kept thinking about you, in a very stubborn way, you’d say that if you were here. It surely was the kind that doesn’t ask for permission before showing up and sitting across from you like it owns the place. I came home with that feeling still stuck to me like always for the past couple of days. Poured a drink like it would translate anything in my head into something simpler. But it didn’t. It just made everything louder. And you mostly.

I almost texted you, you know? That was where it would’ve ended for me. Not the drinking. Not the thinking. It’s almost the moment your fingers hover, and for a second, you believe there’s an ending to this if you just press send. like there’s a version of the world where you answer, and it fixes something.

There isn’t. So I didn’t send anything. Instead, that’s where it gets all funny. I wrote this. Or whatever this is. It doesn’t even make sense now, reading it back. Half of it feels like someone else wrote it.

“ I think i figured it out not you just this no wait that’s a lie i had something to say like two seconds ago it sounded important too which is rare for me so that’s unfortunate You’re in my head again congratulations you win i don’t remember what the prize was but it’s probably me losing. I almost texted you i know shocking write that down somewhere “he almost did it” historic moment I kept thinking if i say the right thing it’ll fix it like there’s a correct sentance. a secret code and suddenly you’re back and im not whatever this is but every sentance i start ends wrong or it doesn’t end at all kind of like us that was good actually i should keep that i dont know why you still here in my head i mean i didn’t ask for this pretty sure i would’ve declinded politely anyway i miss no i dont i mean i do but that’s not the point there is no point i should stop writing now that was supposed to make sense it doesn’t you’re stil here that’s it thats the note” “

Well. I could barely read it. Half the words were stepping on each other like they were in a rush to mean something before I sobered up. The other half looked like I gave up mid thought, which, to be fair, sounds like me. I don’t remember writing most of it. I remember the feeling, the weight of it, specifically. Like something sitting on your chest pretending it belongs there.

Apparently, drunk me thinks he’s insightful. He’s not. He’s just louder. Less filtered. A little more honest than I’d like to admit, which is probably why I don’t let him speak often.

He wrote about you. Of course, he did. He has repeated your name more than once. More than I’m willing to admit, actually. It won’t be showing here. Not because it wasn’t there, if anything, it was the only thing that was there, but because it doesn’t read well. It doesn’t sound like something a person in control would write. It looks obsessive. Unnecessary. A little embarrassing, if I’m being honest, which I’m trying not to be.

Drunk me seemed to think writing your name over and over would lead somewhere. Like if he said it enough, it would turn into an answer. Or a response. Or at least something that felt less like silence. It didn’t

It just turned into a page that looked like it forgot how to move on. So no, I won’t be showing that part. You’ll just have to trust me when I say you were mentioned more than once. More than what I hear daily.

There’s a line there. I think it was a line, or maybe I imagined it, that almost made sense. Something about ending. Or how I can’t seem to find one when it comes to you.

Iconic. Sober me isn’t doing much better. I don’t know why I kept it. It’s not even good or makes sense. It’s just evidence. That no matter how composed I look in a suit, or how quiet I keep things during the day, there’s still a version of me that sits down, pours a drink, and loses to you without even trying.

I’d say i won’t read it again, But i probably will. Just to see if it ever starts making sense.

It probably never will.

Sincerely, whoever I was last night.