We’ve been trying for weeks to capture a photograph of our cat, Yoda, when he goes into that crazed mode we refer to as “bonkers-ing.” He gets the most unhinged expression on his face and goes tearing around the house, streaking from couch to chair to high shelving to cat-condo, pausing for a split second to leer at us from the edge of an armchair, nearly upside-down like a barmy bat, and zooming away again.

As far as photos go, we might as well be stalking Bigfoot.

The elusive “bonkers face” defies photography.

He’s not the only kooky character in the house this afternoon. There’s also the personality of my MacBook & iPhone & iPad, which I tend to consider collectively as a single identity with three interfaces.

We’re already accustomed to personifying our technological help. “Alexa, ask Our Groceries to add coffee creamer.” “Hey, Siri, how late is my pharmacy open?” My mother’s phone speaks to her with an Indian accent, and she calls it Sunil, after an Indian friend. Sunil gives great driving directions, and reads her incoming text messages to her through the car stereo.

It goes further, though, with my Apple trio, because they collectively form MY outlet and interface with the places where creativity happens. They have taken great leaps, lately, in the “Artificial Intelligence” aspects with which they’re able to help me… Google searches are now actually answering the questions I ask—not just presenting possible websites of interest, but culling information from them to provide informative answers. So awesome! I hold down a button on the side of my phone and ask for obscure details of an 1841 whaleship, and ChatGPT offers answers.

But there’s nothing “artificial” in the personality with which I imbue my creative interfaces, my Apple trio. It’s personal, and particular—a personality that encompasses the realm in which my writing and art and images take shape. A caretaker of my mind’s playground.

This is all a lengthy way of saying I love my laptop (and tablet, and phone). I call her, simply, “APPLE”. (If it’s good enough for Gwyneth Paltrow’s kid…) Want to know what APPLE actually looks like? Meet my creativity-partner. Meet my interface. Meet APPLE.

APPLE is very keen on this self-portrait, by the way. (Purple sea urchin on her head is her version of “dressing up”—don’t ask.) She & I have been procrastinating—we told ourselves we’d get to work on the Deuteronomy book to wrap up our explanatory series on the Pentateuch… but I begin to sense that may not be happening today. She does know just what to dangle, to start us down some delicious rabbit-holes…