Wednesday 2/25/26 This is a letter I wrote a couple months ago to someone who writes film scripts and was the writer for what I consider, by far, to be the best film about the Beatles. I'll sometimes repurpose letters here because they say what needs to be said and I see no purpose in spending time and energy rephrasing that which can do the saying itself and perfectly well at that. *** Dear (), I'm sorry for the delay in responding. I began this letter a couple Fridays ago a

Wednesday 2/25/26 This is from something I'm writing on winter horror films, which will also be in my horror film book. Composed this morning. Will need to set this aside now, though, to write a piece about Louis Armstrong. You can’t shake an ice-encrusted stick without swatting someone moaning about winter. As soon as Christmas is done and the New Year’s resolutions are discarded by January 3, the whinging commences. “I just want to go out and do things and living in [inse

Wednesday 2/25/26 The average American is now sufficiently stupid that they're likely to believe that the hockey players on NHL teams based in the United States are all themselves Americans, and hockey players who play for teams based in Canada are all Canadians. I saw proof of this constantly throughout--and all the more so after--the Olympics. What i want to know is how you live in a world this moronic and this evil if you are yourself an intelligent and good person? How th

Tuesday 2/24/26 It may not have looked flashy, but I had a quietly great fitness performance over the weekend. One for the "Whoa, that's the kind of thing he did while he was going through all of that" record/annals. I thought early on Saturday morning that there was a strong chance the Bunker Hill Monument would be closed for the day and it wouldn't be an option to run stairs there. As I mentioned earlier, there was also an skiing/snowboarding event at City Hall, so those st

Tuesday 2/24/26 The people who adopt/almost always default to the "You should get the fuck out of this country because of the objection you voiced" are, ironically, the people who have the least amount of a clue about the democratic tenets on which the country of the United States were built. And as simple as I once would have thought a sentence like the above is, I doubt that any of them could understand that either. But this is as fundamental as it gets. Square one. New sno

Saturday 2/21/26 Multiple nightmares about my ex-wife Molly last night. It's like the trauma--which is actual trauma, because who has that done to them?--is a fixture of me. Tattooed where it counts the most. What makes the waking idea of her harder for me is that there was a time when she showed me kindness, and I bought into that, or the appearance of it, entirely. I became at the mercy of other things later. I'm more prone to romanticize this now, because it's been so long

Friday 2/20/26 Saw some video of Rafael Devers from the Giants' spring training. This guy is eating himself out of his prime. You can't be a professional? You need dessert for dessert? I honestly thought it was Pablo Sandoval at first. Devers has fat man thighs. Which is a different level of out-of-shape than big-gut out-of-shape, though he has that covered, too. Once you get the fat thighs, it's hard to ever go back. He looks like a pork chop armed with a bat in the fight fo

Friday 2/20/26 Returned to the Bunker Hill Monument Wednesday to run stairs. Can't say it was a thing of workout beauty, but I did okay. Ran five circuits of stairs just under a half hour. That's what the pace should be just about even if without time away. It was a little harder, though. Walked three miles and did 100 push-ups, too. Repeated all of this yesterday. Was slower in the Monument, but that was fine. Just trying to get the leg muscles up to speed. You have two main

Thursday 2/19/26 "Serious question..." Can all but guarantee that it isn't. "Honestly asking..." You aren't. "Need a new show to watch." You don't. Artifice is exhausting, realness is refreshing. Even just in terms of witnessing. Maybe posting 100 more photos of yourself would help? Usually it's women who do this. Twenties through fifties. Their social media page will be nothing but photo after photo of themselves. How unwell do you have to be to do this? How dead inside? I a

Wednesday 2/18/26 There's one of those black and white prison movies where the guards abuse the men who work out on the chain gang. The inmates are gathered together around their oldest member. These movies always have that guy. He had time put on his sentence because one day he said "Enough," and slugged a guard. The men ask him if it was worth. The guy pauses. He takes the question seriously. Then he says, "For me it was, yeah." I think often about how he qualified it. How

Tuesday 2/17/26 Not from me, though...I was just the messenger relaying that message via text. Well, the first messenger, though I'm uncertain if my sister did her part. The thing about the Little Ghost Girl and Amelia is that the latter will say, "She's not real," but with this pervading tone of doubt like she's trying to convince herself vanquish some real concerns. And of course the Little Ghost Girl is real. C: Hi. I have a message to pass along. C: The Little Ghost Girl

Tuesday 2/17/26 Sunday marked 3500 days, or 500 weeks, without a drink. Solid. It's actually more than that, but I've erred in counting over the years--which is likelier to happen when you go by the week rather than a particular date--as I have said, and on account that the error is mine I absorb the hit, so to speak. It's like when I run stairs at City Hall and I lose count and I'm almost certain the next time up will be my twentieth but I call it number nineteen just in cas

Monday 2/16/26 I saw a written comment from a person of today underneath an image of a Van Gogh painting that said, "Van Gogh never fails to impress," which gave me pause, though I'm sure it wouldn't do so with anyone else. Van Gogh's paintings didn't impress anyone while he as alive. Perhaps his brother, but his brother may also have felt obligated to respond at length and make sure to be complimentary because of Van Gogh's situation and how devoted he was to not just his ar

Sunday 2/15/26 Jeremy "Sieve" Swayman was up to his usual tricks yesterday, doing his best to help Team USA hand a win over to a much less talented Denmark team. This guy is brutal. First goal the puck was loose in the crease, and it squeaks in. Shouldn't have happened. But then there was the second goal, in which a Danish player beat Swayman on a dump-in from just inside the red line. And then in the second period, Swayman got beaten on a slapshot from the point without a sc

Saturday 2/14/26 My nephew Charlie is acting in his school play which is The Wizard of Oz . He wanted to be the Wizard, but my mom was telling him that would probably go to an eighth grader and not a sixth grader. Charlie got a neat part, though--he's playing the coroner Munchkin. A little black humor! I think it's cool that he shows an interest in this kind of thing. He's very into sports and probably has at least two basketball games later today, and that's what his friends

Thursday 2/12/26 Things that will usually cause problems for someone if a publishing person thinks any of them about that person: You're not one of us. You're not like me. You're smarter than I am. You're legitimate. You're so productive. Your work has so much range. You know more than I do. You're not mediocre. You're self-assured. You're self-made. You make me look bad by comparison. You make it harder for me to believe what I want to believe about myself. You have true pur

Thursday 2/12/26 I am writing well. Charm is among the hardest qualities to realize in writing. There is very little in the history of writing that will make us say, "That's charming." You'll see it sometimes in F. Scott Fitzgerald's writing, but not a whole lot of other places. This is all from right now. Start of a piece I need to get done about winter horror films, which is also for my horror film book. And what do you know: Writing that is actually funny. And poignant, le

Thursday 2/12/26 A little after midnight. Been up for a while for work. Downloading high-definition copies of Kieślowski's Dekalog and Tourneur's Night of the Demon . It bothers me when people ask, "If such and such worth it?" Such and such can be anything. Watching Dekalog . Listening to a version of the Grateful Dead's "Dark Star" from 1972. Ascending the Bunker Hill Monument. Once. Going to a museum. Reading a Chekhov story. If you are someone who asks this question or ha

Wednesday 2/11/26 I am writing well. But when they met and made music together, it was as though all magically became right with the world, which is how we feel when we love someone whom we know loves us as well. To Billie Holiday, Lester Young was “Pres,”; to Lester Young, Billie Holiday was Lady Day and their symbiosis proved unique. Each came of age musically in the 1930s. This was a time when a tenor saxophonist was supposed to have a big, stomping tone, which

Wednesday 2/11/26 People almost always look like I expect them to look. When I read a post of theirs, come across a political comment, glance at an article they've written, witness them frothing off about go Trump go/Jesus/ICE, look at their short story, see that they have the name of their agent in their bio, think "Super Bowl" is one word/utilizes the term GOAT as much as humanly person/and never fails to use "we" when talking about their favorite team as if they've sweat i

Tuesday 2/10/26 Both finished and filed this morning. Each are planned for the horror film book as well. This is how one of them starts: Is there anyone who doesn’t recall their first love? For that matter, is there anyone who doesn’t remember precisely what the world looked like on the day they realized they’d never felt this way before and something deep inside of them would always be different now? Horror fans are similar when it comes to their first movie love

Tuesday 2/10/26 I wish I was the person I am now fifteen years ago. That sounds like I'm locked in to something. I'm not. I change every day. I've looked at the weather reports for the next week and as a result have gotten my hopes up that the Monument will reopen and I won't need to start over with the plan of 1000 circuits-in-a-year, though I realize this isn't smart on my part. With less stairs of late I do what I can. Walked six miles both Sunday and yesterday. Face got w

Monday 2/9/26 Well, that was obviously a tough one for the Patriots last night, but I don't think you can really be too upset if you're a New England fan. As I wrote here, I didn't think they had much of a shot unless Drake Maye played a great game, and I don't think he's capable of that right now. Not on this stage. Maybe he won't ever be. I'd say the chances of that are better than that he is. The playoffs really exposed him. Surely this is the worst postseason a run a quar

Sunday 2/8/26 Generation this, generation that. My generation, your generation, everyone in our generation, etc. The Oscars, the Grammys, Emmys. Awards shows. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Opening ceremonies. The Olympics pretty much entirely, save the hockey component, which are just exhibition hockey games to me but with the best players trying hard so I watch because of that if convenient (that is, not writing or sleeping so I can get an early start). Age, as practically