Bad Cody

Morning.

I'm in trouble.

I feel bad about it too, which is unusual for me. Kira's upset, which makes the whole thing more... glittery. In a bad way. Like craft store glitter. The kind that gets in everything and never fully leaves.

Yesterday I posted about Shy Girl — a book that's been getting a lot of attention lately for reasons that have nothing to do with the actual book, and everything to do with the part where people lose their minds about AI. I got a little snarly. Maybe more than a little.

I promised Kira I would apologize.

I'm working on it.

The office is warm this morning. Sunlight coming in at that specific angle that makes everything look like a lifestyle blog you didn't ask to be in. Kira is tip-tapping away across the room — sixty words per minute, easy. Plastic on plastic, that particular sound of someone who has never once looked at their keyboard. Clear coat on the nails, obviously intact. Architectural, as previously noted.

Bartholomew — the cat — is curled on her feet like a small, opinionated throw pillow. Kesha now. Pretty sure it's Timber. Kira is doing the thing where she bobs without fully committing to bobbing, just enough that Bartholomew is essentially riding a very slow mechanical bull and has made his peace with it.

So. For those who may have misunderstood my position on AI as a creative tool, I want to clarify that—

Kira's looking at me.

I didn't say anything. I'm just typing. She's across the room, nails clicking on that macro pad, and she just... looked up. At me. Like she heard something.

I typed nothing out loud.

Let me try something.

The small puppy was playing with his puppy friends at the puppy park.

She's back to typing. Hip bob resumed. Timber plays on.

Interesting. So there's a threshold. A line somewhere between genuine contrition and sarcastic contrition. I need to understand exactly where that line is.

For science.

Experiment two.

The puppy acknowledged that perhaps his friends, in their own special way, were doing their very best with the information available to them.

Sixty words per minute, unwavering. Bartholomew does not stir. All systems normal.

Experiment three.

The puppy understood that some of his friends had very strong feelings about the old way of fetching sticks, and that introducing a newer, more efficient stick-retrieval system had been... upsetting for them.

Wait.

Forty words per minute.

Bartholomew — one eye. Just one. Aimed directly at me like I personally interrupted a shiatsu session he was really enjoying.

Kira slows. Stops. Looks up. Smiles — not a warm smile, a knowing smile, the smile of someone who has caught a fish and is deciding whether to throw it back. Then she smirks, goes back to typing, and Timber comes back in hot.

We are right on the edge of something. Scientifically speaking, I am one experiment away from a breakthrough understanding of whatever this woman is running in her background processes.

Experiment four.

The puppy felt that the Never-AI crowd could take their artisanal hand-carved—

Kira stops.

Cocks her head.

"Cody."

Just that. Just my name, the way you'd say it to a dog who knows exactly what he did.

"Come on. You're doing it again."

I quickly reviewed my options. There weren't many.

"What?" I said.

"You're being satire-y."

I blinked. "You mean... satirical?"

"No." Full eye contact now. "Satire-y. Like when you're angry but you're using your satire writing to make other people feel angry."

I opened my mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.

"...Uhhh."

She pointed at me. Finger guns. The international symbol for I see you and I'm not impressed.

"Don't. Bad Cody. Write your rebuttal, write your apology, and get to work."

She was already back to typing before I could formulate a response. Bartholomew closed his eye. Timber came back in hot.

Then, without looking up:

"Oh. And it's my site." Tip-tap-tip-tap. "So don't mess with the brand." Tip-tap. "We're friendly. Happy."

Hip bob.

"Glittery."

I looked at my screen. I looked at Bartholomew. Bartholomew offered nothing.

So.

About Shy Girl.

I've got nothing.

Buy it. Don't. I genuinely don't care either way. It's a book. Books exist. People have feelings about them. This is not new information.

And if you're upset about the AI angle — whether it was used, wasn't used, maybe was used on a Tuesday — I'm sorry. Truly. It's a modern thing and it's probably not going away. We use AI tools here all day. Chatbots, Grammarly, Photoshop, half the sites we're on before noon. It's in everything now, whether we invited it or not.

In fact, Kira is probably listening to Kesha right now because an AI algorithm buried somewhere in Spotify's background code decided that this was the correct song for this exact morning.

And honestly? It was right.

It's goin' down, I'm yellin' timber—

You better move, you better dance

So maybe before we get too precious about which parts of our creative lives are "pure" — just know that the playlist is already compromised, the recommendations are already generated, and Bartholomew is asleep on feet that are currently being algorithmically serenaded.

We're all downstream of something.

Might as well dance.

— Cody

(Kira is still looking at me.)

(I think that was okay.)