classic-dopamine-economics.md
Writing · Aug 14, 2026

Classic dopamine economics

I keep forgetting to write a post. Instead what happens is I leave myself little bread-crumb trails of notes (“chitaru shiota exhibit; can’t relate”, “birdhouse craft”), like a woman fleeing a crime scene that she will later have to investigate. They just sit there. A little graveyard of intentions. This is the inconvenient curse of my flavour of ADHD: I cash in the entire dopamine hit on the idea, and then there’s nothing left in the tank for the part where you sit down and, you know, do the thing. All gas, no car. Anyway, here we go: here’s the last month or so.

Redesigned my homepage. It looks like a timey-wimey old school operating system, all nostalgia and no structural integrity — less pretty on mobile, obviously, the way these things always are. It’s got hidden bits and bobs and settings where you can make it look very unreadable. I shipped it a month ago, told nobody, and have since developed a persistent anxiety that it’s stupid and I should just have a clean, normal layout like a normal person on this normal internet.

an ms-dos blue and cyan version of this homepage

Built a Baba Yaga hut birdhouse. It took me over 30 hours and I’ve formed an unhealthy attachment to it. Baba Yaga is an unpredictable Slavic forest witch: sometimes eats children, sometimes helps heroes, no consistency, no brand strategy. As a kid I clocked her as a monster: single, old, ugly, and (worst crime of all to young me) completely unbothered by what anyone thought of her. Obviously a feminist icon in retrospect, but it takes growing up to see the patriarchy for what it is. In Romanian folklore she just lives in a regular old hut; it’s specifically the Russian tales that put it on chicken legs, which is such a deranged, surrealist little flourish that I’m frankly obsessed with it.

front side of a popsicle sticks hut on chicken legs back side of a popsicle sticks hut on chicken legs

I also made a face jar, like I said I would. It’s not cursed yet, but it’s early days. These things take commitment, same as everything else on this list. You don’t just wake up to a curse overnight.

a red and purple ceramics jar with an abstract face on it

Did a full 180 on the new Strokes album. First listen: jarring, cannot relate, where is the Strokes I love and trust? Two more listens in and I’ve decided the autotune is a deliberate choice; cubism, basically, which you have to respect in an era of AI slop where everyone sounds the same. Then I realised I have this exact reaction to every Strokes album, without fail. The new abnormal came out mid-pandemic, I gave it two listens, moved on. Fast forward to this year, where I hyperfixated on it for two months straight and consumed nothing else. So of course I was going to react badly to the new one; nothing could’ve met expectations that unreasonable. Classic dopamine economics, really. Spend it all obsessing, have nothing left over for a reasonable first opinion.

In French, to say you miss something is “tu me manques”: you are missing from me, not the other way around, which is an unbearably romantic way of putting it. I feel that way about Montreal when I visit: like it’s the thing missing from me. But going back this week, like I did, I got hit with a bit of existential dread that what’s actually missing isn’t the city at all, it’s my twenties. A decade I don’t even want back. There was a version of me that only existed in that specific place, at that specific time, and Montreal kept going without her. The city’s still there. She isn’t. And if I’m honest, I’m a little jealous of it; the audacity, thriving without me like that.

Nothing that 4 routine poutines didn’t fix.

a bike with a milk crate basket leaning on a fence

Photo heavy. Is that good? Tap tap. Is this thing on?

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