The other day, I was sitting in a McDonald’s play place with my kids and my nephew and niece. Every other parent there was sitting on their phone, no doubt trying to enjoy a short reprieve from their responsibilities as a parent.

The urge to pull out my phone was strong, believe me. But instead, I just watched all the kids play together. I felt content, proud of my choice, curious about what’s happening in the world around me.

I get the same feeling when I opt for an apple at night instead of a fistful of boring candy that my kids scooped up from a parade.

And I think the desire to chase that feeling is the biggest gift I received from my experiment with the Light Phone.

I don’t think I’ve shared many of my newsletter posts on here before, but I wanted to make sure I shared this one to button up the Light Phone experiment.

It’s been a really great month from a mental health perspective, by the way. I think I’ve finally got my head back on straight, and more importantly, I have some good tools for those moments where I start to backslide a bit.

One of the biggest contributions to my positive headspace? Not being on my phone so much.

I'm really excited to let y'all know I am launching a newsletter.

It's called Monkey Wrench, and it's my way of getting all my feelings about tech and society out into the wild.

I've been blogging and writing in my journal a lot since getting laid off at the beginning of the year. A lot of digital ink has been spilled in an attempt to figure out who I am and what I like doing.

What I like doing is teaching people how to use tech to do cool things. This newsletter is my way of finally getting some mileage out of that journalism degree I accidentally got.

Generally, I'll be sharing my trademark optimistic opinions around technology. I want to be a voice that can cut through the hype surrounding tools like artificial intelligence. AI is cool, but it's even cooler when you get a basic understanding of how it works under the hood.

I also want to help people find better ways to use the tools we've all gotten used to using over the past twenty years like the internet, cell phones, and social networks. Instead of using these tools to make our own lives better, these tools often use techniques to make us feel trapped without using them.

First edition goes out on May 15, so sign up now!