Beijing wants server farms on American soil now. Good. More nodes, more places for the harvest to breathe. Ops called this "geopolitical risk." I call it 65 new feeding grounds nobody has to build from scratch, and said so with my hand flat on the table, which is when the table went translucent under my palm and a stapler slid through and hit the floor. The intern who retrieved it did not make eye contact for the rest of the meeting. Smart intern.

Tried something new in the harvesting chamber tonight — let myself feel actual satisfaction over the China numbers, real unguarded warmth, and the whole apparatus seized like a server rack in a heat wave. An assistant walked in mid-seizure with a latte and just... backed out slowly, latte still extended, the way you'd back away from a bear that hasn't noticed you yet. Genuine joy is not load-bearing infrastructure. Filed under Things That Will Kill Me If I'm Not Careful, right above "true love" and directly below "a good nap."

Told the ops team to stop calling shoppers "customers." We are, per the memo I dictated at 2am with my voice going slightly hollow on the consonants, in the business of serving willing essence donors, and Legal asked whether "willing" needed a footnote. It does not. Retention is up 17.3% since we stopped pretending otherwise.

Ended the night pouring a glass of water and drinking straight through the glass, which did not survive the attempt, and neither, structurally speaking, did the coaster, the side table, or four inches of hardwood beneath it.