Mortar

Friday 9/5/25

I have all of these entries to get up on here. Entries that are about one primary thing. Idea. Person. Place. The intention is to move systematically through those entries; do them, cross them off the list, with nothing else in between them. Boom, boom, boom.

But then other things happen, are being done, and I don't wish to leave those things out, which would be counter to the spirit of this record, and thus there's an entry like this one, which is akin to mortar between what would be the bricks of which I just spoke.

A contractor I know gives his customers bit of warning. He tells them that things are going to get messy and look like a wreck, but when the job's done, everything will be perfect and look great, so don't be alarmed in the meanwhile.

That's similar to what's happening right now with my own "Dead Thomas." When it's done, it will be the best thing ever written. Tied for. But as we speak--and I was just working on it again thirty seconds ago--it looks as though a bomb went off inside of it.

This is the story that I wrote whenever I wrote it--2019, I believe. It was 3000 words then. Shared it with a professor friend some months later, who pronounced it one of the best things he'd read in his life. I'd done it and moved on from it. His comments caused me to go back and read the story. I write so many things. I don't stand around admiring anything. I move on. I was struck by how good it was. And I moved on again.

Last fall, something caused me to look at the story again. I know what--I wanted it for There Is No Doubt: Story Girls. And as I looked at it, I thought, "Oh, man, this can be so much better." I began basically all over again. The 3000 word story became a 7000 word story. Until this week, I hadn't worked on it since February. I expected--not that I'm committed to the expectation, because I operate under the premise that I don't know until I know--when I returned to the story to see that it was mostly done.

Wrong. Not close. The first half was a mess that was going to take real work. The problem was was that it was taking too long getting going with its business. There's this great opening scene, but as the story was written, that scene sort of restarts, you might say, five or six times, and then you're deep-ish into the story by the time that scene is done. Actually, check that--you're too many physical pages into the story.

Writers rarely consider the physical nature of pages. I do. If you watch basketball, you might notice that a player has a part of the floor they want to get to, where they want to get the ball, that they want to establish as a first point of attack, before they branch out the rest of their game. Michael Jordan would do this. He'd want the ball on the block. Then he'd knock down three of four turnarounds from there, and his offensive game would expand in following. But he wanted the ball on the block first.

This will sound weird to other people, but I know the shape of the paragraphs--almost as sculpture--before I know the words that will make those shapes. I know that by the bottom of page one, or the middle of page two, that this given thing needs to have happened.

Another basketball analogy: You'll see teams--especially with the final possession and close to a full shot clock in a tie game--take a while to get into their stuff. Their offense. Point guard holds the ball, guys stand around. Frequently, the team plays itself into a bad shot, or might not even get a shot up. Writing is the same way. You want to get into your stuff sooner rather than later, lest later become too late. Publishing people wouldn't think in this manner because most of them are broken freaks who are scared of sports and competition, but if you're not drawing on everything, can't conceive of potentially anything, you're not knowing enough to write well. And what are the chances, say, of someone who got an MFA from Iowa not being scared of having a ball thrown to them? Let alone the guts of life, of doing the real work, facing what is new and truly going for things of consequence with all of the courage and vulnerability and faith that requires. Belief.

I enjoy having to work through a story like this. Because I know how it's going to come out. There's no stress in that sense. It's on me to get it right, because if I do get it right--which I will--there will be a work of art beyond all other works of art by anyone else.

I've been creating different versions, because I don't want to feel restrained. If I want to reach down to page six and bring this paragraph to page one, and copy and paste and go nuts and get extensive--really mess up that house, to use the contractor example again--then it's important for me not to feel inhibited. I have the other versions anyway. Which I'll toss into a miscellaneous folder--as if they were outtakes--when this is all said and done.

After working on the story Wednesday, thinking about it yesterday--including while I lay in bed at night--I understood what had to be done quite clearly, and have been putting that right this morning. It's a four-part progression.

The story swelled to 7500 words on Wednesday, but I'm expecting it to keep getting shorter, as it's been doing. But it will be whatever it's supposed to be. And it will be the third story in There Is No Doubt, which is the spot I've had planned for it for a good while now.

Been listening to a lot of detective and crime classic radio programs lately. The New Adventures of Nero Wolf, Let George Do It, The Adventures of Philip Marlowe, The Adventures of Sam Spade, Broadway is My Beat, Mr. District Attorney, Nick Carter, Master Detective, This is Your FBI, Richard Diamond, Private Detective, The Amazing Mr. Malone, Under Arrest, Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons.

Watched Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), The Return of the Vampire (1944), The Black Scorpion (1957), and It Came from Outer Space (1953) for different film pieces I'm writing.

Reached out to Mosaic for copies of their recent piano and Pharoah Sanders box sets, and Universal for their upcoming Super Deluxe Edition of the Who's Who Are You. I'm most interested in the studio rehearsals there. I also have to get in touch with someone handling the expanded Beatles' Anthology for November.

Downloaded the Velvet Underground's The Professor Tapes, Bob Dylan's two Roseland shows from October 1994, his Madison Square Garden show from 11/19/2001, a lot of Art Tatum, and also the show where Oasis first played "Don't Look Back in Anger" and the show where they first played "Champagne Supernova." What else? A Stereo MCs BBC package, and JSP's box of Blind Lemon Jefferson's complete output in bettered sound.

An ex-girlfriend from college wrote to say that she saw Oasis on Monday. I wouldn't go to something like that if you gave me a free ticket, but I did look around for a copy of the gig to send her, as she had a nice time, but it turns out what I sent was from the night before. These things always turn up now, though, if you know where to look. (Edit: Located correct show.)

People will definitely remind you why you don't like them--if you let them. Growth is less of a thing than at any previous point. It's virtually non-existent in humans. What growth there is has to do with circumstances and surroundings; the growth that a person has no choice regards. But the growth that originates from within? It's not out there. It's here and in evidence every day. But that makes for its own kind of hell, considering how everyone and everything else is.

Listened a bunch to the Grateful Dead's 9/3/77 show in Englishtown, NJ. Jerry Garcia's guitar tone has something of that jagged edge to it that we get from the Philadelphia Spectrum show in September 1972. Encoring with "Terrapin Station" and then walking away is quite the gauntlet throw-down.

As I believe I mentioned, a quirk in the schedule has resulted in the Bunker Hill Monument being open for what will be thirteen straight days. I don't know if this has happened before. I could get that information from these pages--the Monument could have been open seven days a week prior to COVID, in which case, I'm sure entries from that time period in this record would affirm as much, but I don't think so.

Soon, I expect, the schedule will be altered, and the Monument will both be closed on Tuesdays to go along with Mondays, and instead of opening at 10 will open at 1, but I hope that comes later, as it did last year. I mention this because a ranger yesterday was telling me he was retiring in a couple weeks, which is when the schedule changes. The Monument is open on holiday Mondays, though, as long as they aren't Christmas, which is why I got the extra day this week. Being open on Tuesdays has only been a thing since mid-June.

The upshot of all of this is that I've run stairs in the Monument for ten straight days now. As yesterday was the tenth, I thought ten circuits would be appropriate. Up to 150 circuits since beginning the new "season" on July 31.

Isn't this funny how it works? Recently, I basically didn't set foot outside for a whole week. Then I forced myself not to give up--really, to die--and simply through force and strength--because it's not as if I feel any differently--I went out there and was decently consistent for two or three weeks or whatever it was--I believe last week was a forty-circuit week--and there I was yesterday, doing ten circuits on what was my tenth day in a row in that remarkable obelisk. Forcing myself.

On each of these days I also walked three miles, save one where it was five, and have averaged 100 push-ups. One day I did no push-ups, so I did 200 the next day to make up for it. For example.

I feel physically strong.

My mom babysat the three kids last night. I know she wanted to ask them about school. Charlie is running track and ran a couple miles in sixteen minutes. Or sixteen minutes and change. Something like that. But that's seems good. He is mistaken, though, if he ever expects to overtake his uncle in the Monument. This is a joke that is also not a joke.

Amelia went out for the bus twenty minutes early on her second day of kindergarten and wanted to do the same the next day, but her mom said she could only leave ten minutes early. I think she really wants to get to school because she's having fun there. And also because she thinks she's like an adult. Amelia likes the idea of being all grown-up. She has this cell phone that doesn't work, and she'll go off at like dinner and take calls. And make calls. She's just talking to the air! I think that's a good sign--you want a kid to use their imagination. You want adults to as well, except they don't and most wouldn't have a clue how to.

Don't know how everything is going with Lilah, but I'll be debriefed soon probably. She's good at school and takes to learning. Hopefully she's having fun with her friends, too, and settling in and feeling comfortable.

I don't want to be dead by the time they read these words. But things will have to change perhaps more than anything else ever has. I don't need the "perhaps," I just put that in. I know. God do I know.

The Red Sox' postseason chances--and what you were starting to think might be World Series chances--took a big hit the other day when Roman Anthony went down for the rest of the regular season, and it could be longer.

He's such an important player for them. He's their catalyst. A catalyst is huge to a team. That's the player who helps you get going, jump starts you, sparks you, turns games around in your favor. Gets them started in your favor. The Red Sox should still make the playoffs--they'd need a sizable collapse not to.

Allowing that they're still playing if and when Anthony returns, there's the whole matter of timing, which people overlook. You're not the same when you haven't been doing something, and hitting is hard enough to begin with. But we'll see.

I don't want to just say, "They're done now," though the way they played in the first game minus Anthony wasn't encouraging. Garrett Crochet got it handed to him in the sixth inning after faring pretty well up until then. These pitchers are babied to a detrimental degree. They take on more work after all of the babying, and they tire or get hurt and miss a year.

I'm unsure why Jordan Hicks is on this team. His WHIP is nearly 2.0--meaning, he allows almost two base runners per inning. He's never been good, and yet he's made himself a fortune. Sports, right?

But he's worse now. He's all but guaranteed to be pounded each time he pitches. At least with Walker Buehler, you got the occasional good outing. He was also a veteran who'd done some postseason winning. I'd much rather have him. With Hicks you're on the verge of conceding defeat for that game.

Tolle goes tonight for the Sox--he's going to be important. Then Gialito and Bello, who should be followed by Crochet, but I can see them giving him extra rest. These are your better pitchers. It's important to string some wins together in the aftermath of losing Anthony for belief and confidence.

Had a dream I was sitting on one side of a table with Wayne Gretzky and Paul Coffey on the left and Glen Sather at the end to my right. Coffey was in front of me, Gretzky to the left. It was circa 1981 based on their appearance, and they were explaining to me how they intended to play, the style they wished to employ, and the reasons why. Coffey was the most adamant.

The following day I woke up with Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington's 1961 "Duke's Place" in my head.

Mind boggling stat: Coffey, a defenseman, of course, led the NHL in shorthanded goals in 1985-86, with 9. Almost as improbably, Mark Howe, another defenseman, was second with 7.

Bill Belichick has reportedly barred Patriots' scouts from attending UNC practices. This guy is so petty. He keeps embarrassing himself. He's fast becoming a cautionary tale. You can imagine Shakespeare writing a tragedy with a Belichick-type as the central figure.