Amy again?

if scars could talk, my arms would be my 3rd album and a manuscript

My name is Amy and I like writing as much as I like coding.

Welcome to another post. This one is not whimsical; this is me trying Substack again.

The last 2 months (el dos mes passado) were painful months. Physical pain.

I was very ill, had 2 syncopal episodes and was admitted to the ICU. Long story short, the long stay changed me physically.

I wasn’t allowed to eat for a while except ice cubes, and I lost a lot of body mass/muscles. My intestines also became “sluggish” or asleep; I could take a shower after some days, but I had a PICC line in me and the thought of it getting infected scared me more than the PICC line itself.

I remember the Friday the PICC line was installed; it had become difficult for any phlebotomist to draw blood from me because all my veins had sort of “blown up” from all the constant piercings. I mean 4-5 times a day, till I became desensitized to it. So, after a sudden spike in heart rate situation, it was decided – you need a PICC line.

Incase you’re wondering why this scared me, it’s because it’s literally connected to your heart and the prep process was “too much”, necessary and scary. I cried so much till the IV doctor allowed my husband to stay in the room, even though that’s not ideal. Oh, I cried even more because it scared my husband.

To be honest, I don’t know what hurts more: losing appetite or muscles I worked so hard to gain. I’m learning that creatine, the powdery supplement I take to bulk, is, excuse me, useless. It retains water which is why I am now so frail.

So, it took a physical, mental and psychological toll on me. I’ve always been upfront about mental health but when I saw how much I had changed physically, the bruises and scars, all my sore arms and the weight loss and weak muscles (or like my husband calls it muskles), I just wanted to disappear.

It didn’t help that it escalated into something else and I had to wear a heart/event monitor for a month.

Going offline is not new to me, every once in a while, I do sort of a detox from everything internet but they are usually for a short period of time. In 2025, I did one for 6 months. I had just lost my sister and I was hard, still is, but after 6 months, I came back online.

That’s what I wanted to do this time. Take time off, recover, read, rest. I was told not to run again for at least 2 months, so no workouts, no running and a heart, so what am I supposed to be doing? I can’t watch big bang theory from dawn till dusk. Well, I can, but at some point, my hatred for Penny becomes diabolical, and it’s time to shut it down before I will her head to explode for something.

Problem is, I didn’t even feel like reading too, and writing felt and still feels like a chore.

Substack, just like with most of the things I’ve tried to do, has been a not-so-successful venture for me. I’ve done it all: Articles, populating the space with notes, community chats nobody reads, images, podcasts, reposting. Swinging mud till something sticks.

I’ve done this for 2 years and nothing stuck. I have always been unlucky with these things.

Everybody says the hard work pays off and yes, that is mostly true but not for everybody.

I have positioned myself in every and any which way; wetted, waited, toiled and planted, and just didn’t grow to show the work I have done. For 2 years.

I think I joined Substack in 2024, after I lost my father. And this reminder doesn’t help either. Same thing with Upwork, but that’s a story I’ve told too many times...

I’m a rather pessimistic person who just became more of a realist, and also recently promised my husband I’d become more positive and hopeful but I know I’ve not always been lucky with these things. Maybe someday.

I was playing around with an old project I did for a client, and made a dashboard/deck out of it using Claude and it somehow felt good to sit back on watch something work for you. So, I started burning up tokens and allowing myself to make mistakes and move on.

I learnt about skills, ai agents, MCP (the new frontier) and boy, am I ready?!?

I must have started forgetting Substack when I decided to check my emails.

If you’ve seen some of my posts about death, I always say I will delete my online presence if I know the day I would die, and if I don’t, it’s my husband’s duty to ensure that every account everywhere, including my mail accounts are deactivated or deleted. The only thing he should keep and must keep doing is my candy crush game, my comfort game. Thankfully, I didn’t die.

I hadn’t checked my mail in a while, so imagine my surprise when I did and guess what I found: new subscribers. And guess what? FROM RECOMMENDATIONS and without recommendations.

People were still subscribing to this good ‘ol whimsical page. I don’t know why they would, it makes little sense as I’ve also always said “unsubscribe from things that don’t serve you, including mine”, and I wasn’t serving anything.

But seeing new subscribers and 2 sales in 2 months, I may not be out of the woods yet but I think I know my way around the woods. And that’s safe or I think it is.

So what is this post about? Sickness, substack, optimism, Codex or claude?

No. this is kind of my appreciation, I’m-a-bit-surprised-about-this, I’m-grateful-to-be-here, and welcome-back post.

I’m sorry if it’s not what you expected or too long, you can and should skip over this one.

It’s my duty to make sure I compartmentalize my life (and feelings), but I think I owe it to myself to be genuine, and with that, it feels good to have another chance to reconnect with people again.

I have been doing some cool stuff with Claude, automations, and n8n, and creating pitch decks (don’t ask why? I like design), and I will share them soon. I hope this time around, something cool happens or I at least get to enjoy it. If not, I did some work to get here.

Some of you may know that I like easy-to-use and valuable Excel templates. But this time I built something while I was off.

Introducing Warmline, your go-to for first lines, openers, and pitching. I’ll talk more about it later, but you can try it here: WARMLINE.

Your first 15 Warmline(s) are on me, while I’m still building the paid version, which comes with an extra oomph. If you hit 15, join the waitlist, and you’ll be among the first to know about it.

I’m late to the party but yayy to me shipping my first website and product.

Thank you for sticking around, it’s never goodbye here, it’s always see you around.

X, amigas … hasta luego

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Up next on data according to me: Warmline … where robots don’t eat your words

ICYMI:

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Data Scientist⬩ Spreadsheet advocate ⬩ Freelancer ⬩