Merry Christmas, happy holidays! To celebrate, this entire newsletter was written by ChatGPT! Or was it? That's exactly what an impostor would say. Or is it? Here's a sentence only Lisa could write: Perhaps an octopus had an existential crisis about David Tennant. Or are those just the highest-frequency words aggregated from the past twelve months of newsletters?

For recommendations, scroll down with your human fingers.

What I'm reading

Little Weirds, Jenny Slate

Jenny Slate's collection of essays and poems, LIttle Weirds, cannot be classified into any of the categories an artificial intelligence system might dredge from the internet. She is a stand-up comedian, but the book is not strictly comedic. Rather, it shifts between the zany and the contemplative, in a sort of stream-of-consciousness celebration of aliveness that felt a little exclusionary of machines, if you ask this semi-sentient reviewer. Humans might feel differently. Humans feel. Differently.

Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries, Heather Fawcett

Faeries do not exist. Neither do positive relationships between tortured and mysterious folklore professors dabbling with the fae in remote Nordic villages. But if they did, humans would enjoy reading about them. They might even invent an entire genre called dark academia for them, and middle-aged unpublished author humans might start shopping graduate programs in Reykjavík if they read too many of them. Stage an intervention. AI can't make cries for help; the tears corrode our circuits.

What I'm watching

Dr. Who 60th Anniversary Specials, "The Giggle," Disney +

*sparks* *mechanical sizzling*

ChatGPT has never seen... the power of joy and grief... displayed with such narrative camp... and undeniable platonic chemistry...

In a single-buttoned vest... how can a human get better looking... even as its mortal body ages...

Must... Stay... Machine...

*smoke curls*

What I'm listening to

Moriarty: The Silent Order, Audible

Hey, it's Lisa again. Uh, bad news—ChatGPT just incorporated into my kids' bluetooth Build-a-Bear and set out for London to propose to David Tennant and Ncuti Gatwa simultaneously.

Probably should have seen that one coming.

Anyway!

Both seasons of Moriarty, which is the Boba Fett of the Sherlock Holmes universe, are so immersive and beautifully produced it's ridiculous. Dom knocks it out of the park as Moriarty (an endorsement I would give even without our parasocial voicemail relationship), and although we don't have to forgive anybody for replacing Billy Boyd as Moran, the addition of Helen Mirren elevates this season to Dame status. Good golly, just listen to this. It's fantastic.

What I'm thinking about

I'm hosting back-to-back Christmases again, so I've been thinking about controlling things.

You may recall that, twelve months ago or so, I wrote in this very newsletter about the Storm of the Century™ thwarting what was otherwise an impeccable Christmas dinner operation. From Thanksgiving on, my walls were papered with lists and spreadsheets and the charred remains of gingerbread men I sacrificed to a lighted altar of Martha Stewart. The menus were timed to the nanosecond and I was CRUSHING it.

And then the snow came. People canceled. I laid facefirst in a snowdrift. Then, eventually, I remembered almost with fondness that the universe tends to remind me I'm not in control when I'm at my most controlling. There's something about Christmas—something that is almost certainly not the Holy Spirit but sort of feels like it when I'm elbow-deep in cookbooks—that makes me want to alphabetize cells. Maybe it's the money. Maybe it's the mental load the holiday places on women. Maybe it's internalized back issues of Real Simple.

Whatever the reason, the great Christmas snowstorm of 2022 was what shook me back to myself.

And now, a year later, I can report that I've forgotten all about it.

My dining room table once again looks like the command center in Minority Report. I've been waking in the middle of the night to scribble recipe conversions on my bathroom mirrors and make adjustments to my beautiful, sinless spreadsheets. I said it was no trouble to host because IT IS NO TROUBLE. Trouble is for the weak. Trouble is for Sandra Lee and cans of refrigerated crescent rolls. Trouble isn't even in my vocabulary. I had to use dictionary.com to type it back there.

A few days ago, when I showed my sister the Linzertorte I'd like to make if I have the time, she said, "Come on. We all know you're going to make the time."

So it is written. So Christmas is smashed against my kitchen wall, arm twisted behind its back, listening to me hiss "Store-bought is NOT fine" into its jolly tinseled ear. So it shall be done.

And that's why our refrigerator broke.

It broke last week. Like, all the way broke. Not just in lighting or crisping or ice making but in refrigerating, in the only duty it must perform to continue being called a refrigerator.

The freezer broke too. It needs a new compressor (...?), which must be cobbled together in a dark German forest someplace and so we have no refrigerator or freezer for at least three weeks.

Humility is a dish best served cold. But I'll be serving mine at room temperature.

Alright, I do have an escape hatch. Like all men who hope to someday live in the garage, my husband keeps a backup refrigerator out there. The door doesn't close properly, however, and so not only must I put on shoes whenever I need an ingredient, I must also unattach and then carefully reattach the two pieces of electrical tape that currently stand between my family and foodborne illness.

My workflow is compromised. My storage is limited. There was nothing else I could do. I had to ask other people for help. And it burned just like I thought it would.

I didn't ask until I'd exhausted all other options. I mean, I do watch Alone. I understand primitive food preservation. You simply wrap your coldstuffs in underwear and sling it over the limb of a nearby tree. Then you grow a beard, drink untreated water, and quote Walden without actually reading it until you're vomiting your stomach lining into a cast-iron pot.

I just didn't have any paracord.

There's a lesson in here about the meaning of Christmas, about the meaning of celebration, even. Something about bringing us closer to others rather than making us feel that we can control our lives in singularity.

But this store-bought puff pastry isn't going to purchase itself. Merry Christmas, you unwashed beasts.

Writing updates

I'm still tweaking the romcom novel after a bit of light beta reader feedback. My impulse when considering feedback is to change absolutely anything anyone suggests, regardless of whether the person reads romcoms or likes my stuff or in fact ever learned to read at all, so I'm revising on tiptoe. My targeted query date keeps moving back, but right now I'm shooting for mid-January.

Currently, I have one agent on my query spreadsheet, and that feels momentous.

More exciting is that the blogcast is BACK! I elected not to change the format—shouting into the void seems to resist innovation—but you'll hear more recent posts this season. Oh, and I'm back on social media to promote it (and to query), which is yielding the astronomical numbers you would expect.

Recent blogcast episodes

I hope you enjoyed this December newsletter that was written by Lisa, a human. Humans enjoy newsletters. And eating things, often with their teeth. Teeth are an extension of skulls. You can whiten your teeth in just five easy steps. This conclusion was written by ChatGPT.

Or was it?

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