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

Sunday 2/8/26 How much do you think twelve large red peppers and six large white onions would run you? The total was $12 yesterday at Haymarket. I went back out to get them in the snow after returning from Trader Joe's to put the bags down. These things are less expensive at Haymarket--even with Trader Joe's good prices--so I'll make another trip. That wasn't even the best deal deal one might get at Haymarket. Sometimes it's even cheaper. There were less dealers yesterday bec

Saturday 2/7/26 When an interesting looking health article pops up--usually one about a study--I'll often read it. I might learn something that would be smart to do--as I recently did about the benefits of having a spoonful of extra virgin olive oil each day--and sometimes it's just nice to see that a practice I regularly employ has benefits. My life borders on the unendurable at this juncture, so I'll take a little thing--just a little bump--when one is available. I try to s

Friday 2/6/26 This will also be in the book on horror films. Excellent stuff. No film writing like it. *** The best bad movies—which will sound like an oxymoron only to those who’ve never fallen for one—feel as though they are made out of love and had to be given to us by the people responsible for them the same as the person who is brave enough to love gives their heart to another in all its vulnerable nakedness. These bad movies have box loads of flaws, as we all do, but a

Friday 2/6/26 As it says. *** Want to see some prose, brothers and sisters? Sometimes I like to imagine that I'm in the MC5 and it's time to find out who is gonna be part of the problem and who is gonna be party of the solution and who is ready to testify!!! This story will be done soon. God knows I've put a ton of effort into it. It's for There Is No Doubt: Story Girls. I've had a slow start to the year, but I'm getting back on it. Which means, torrent time. I still haven'

Friday 2/6/26 On Wednesday, I walked to Charlestown, hoping that the Bunker Hill Monument would be open for the first time since the snow storm from a week and a half before. The weather had warmed up, too, with the temperature being thirty degrees. There was little wind, the sky mostly blue. I had walked to Charlestown four or five times since the storm, thinking I might be able to run my stairs there. On each of those visits, there were these two little drifts of snow--the

Thursday 2/5/26 Eddie House has become an abomination on the Celtics broadcast. His employment shows you how the powers-that-be in media think. They'll give a job to a player who was a fringe contributor, or a non-contributor, to a past champion team in that market, simply because he was on the roster. That's pathetic, right? It should insult your intelligence, but people are so dumb, and sports fans are usually so dumb, that it doesn't. People are too dumb to even recognize

Wednesday 2/4/26 A while ago I had alluded to this remarkable statistic I had discovered about Ted Williams. I get rather deep in the statistical weeds in my researches. The season-by-season stuff is one thing, but I like to go further. This isn't the stat I was referring to--we'll get to that in a minute--but this is the type of thing I mean. Ted Williams was formidable everywhere; that is, at home and on the road. If you're going to put up the career numbers he did--in term

Wednesday 2/4/26 I may not have written it here, but I erred conversationally in remarking to someone that Hockey East didn't have any teams in the top ten and there it was, late January. Providence was actually ranked ninth. I don't normally make mistakes like that. Wanted to get it right. Providence has moved up to seven this week, with Boston College sitting right outside the top ten at eleven, followed by UConn at twelve. A professor pal of mine in Maine thinks Providence

Tuesday 2/3/26 Not going to get into the background leading to this, but it's a letter to a young person who is going through something. Their parent has hurt me a great deal when I have always been there for them. I'm trying to keep the feelings I have on that score, and the knowledge thereof, separate. I don't want to not help someone even in some small way if I can. I'd feel guilty and that's not who I want to be. It isn't easy to compartmentalize sometimes. We need mental

Tuesday 2/3/26 What kind of monster do you have to be yourself to put out a book by an obvious monster like Neil Gaiman? But that's publishing, though, isn't it? And you can't look at it like, "The world would be a lesser place without this book, apart from the evil man," because that's not true either though, is it? The work of a such a writer doesn't add anything, really, to the world, or help make it a better place. The best it can be is a diversion, and we've already basi