Stairs as architecture's mirrors to the soul and saying hello

Monday 3/9/26

An observation, but I think it's a telling one. I don't go to a gym, as is documented here about as thoroughly as possible with my writings about stairs. I understand that one may encounter people of many ages and body types at a gym. But as I'm outside, either running stairs, en route to running stairs, or walking the many miles I walk, the people I see who are running are almost always--with very rare exceptions--people who are in shape. I don't see overweight people running, or even slightly so. If I do, it'll usually be a man rather than a woman.

What does this suggest to me? A few things. These people are in shape because they work to stay in shape. It doesn't just happen. If they stopped working at it, they would be in worse shape. It's an effort thing, despite what many people and the world wishes one to believe. You decide, you try. You keep trying.

It also tells me that people who aren't in shape are at least in part in shape because they don't want to put forth this effort. I'm outside often. I cover many miles. I will go many weeks without seeing a non-fit person running in Boston, and I see a lot of runners. It also tells me that it's a different kind of person--a more committed person--who will get outside for their workouts. It's a different kind of motivation, because it can be uncomfortable. Cold, wet, windy.

It's sort of like people who like winter. They are almost always healthier than people who complain (and complain, and complain, and complain) about winter.

I mention this this morning in part because I see this trend of late of people shaming other people...for not being on Ozempic. "What? Jealous you can't afford it?"

We take everything good--like having integrity, having substance, being intelligent, learning, speaking well, know the basic meaning of words and how commas work, effort, individuality, legitimacy--and turn it into a negative in our society, and attempt to replace it with something else, usually its converse.

You could see a world where everyone is morbidly obese, and no one moves any more than they have to. You're already getting a world in which no one thinks more than they have to. The world devolves to accommodate the masses, which means the world makes it so that less and less thinking is required. People cannot think. It isn't something they're physically capable, if you will, of doing.

Thinking is a progression. Like steps. First step, then you think to the second step, then the third, and so on--it's a chain of mental action--until you get to something true. Multiple things that are true.

People don't go further than that first step, which is a lunge that they take for the whole of a journey.

How hard do you really try at anything, let alone the big overall everything? I need to try far harder. I can be so much better. I feel and think that nothing I can do would matter. That makes it harder for me to try, let alone rededicate myself such that I'm trying large amounts more, but I should still do it and I need to find a way. I realize that if I were to work much harder and here I was, with nothing changed, or, more likely, things even worse, I'd have that much of a harder time continuing. But I still must find a way. I'm not trying hard enough.

Stairs, by the way, don't judge you, unlike maybe that bro at the exercise machine next to yours. But they are architecture's mirrors to the soul. One goes on a journey with a set of stairs that one goes up and down, despite the geographical coordinates remaining exactly the same, but don't be fooled by that.

Stairs are humbling, especially Bunker Hill Monument stairs. They ground you--paradoxically, given that you take them--or run them, as is often the case with me--to ascend. You may run Monument stairs regularly, but it doesn't take long after you stop doing so--even if you are running other stairs--to backslide. May this serve as a reminder in all matters: if you aren't striving and growing, you're receding.

As I noted earlier, the Monument reopened on Wednesday, a day on which I had already ran 5000 stairs at City Hall and walked six miles, so I stood down. I returned to Charlestown, though, on Thursday, where I did seven circuits of stairs in the Monument.

This wasn't pretty and was something of a challenge from the first circuit. That's a good feeling, though--struggle, but not because of inequity or discrimination, as with publishing, but in which one has control and can do better and get better. And, again, though you're ascending, there's the idea of the level playing field. How well you do and how hard you work will matter here.

I don't mind that kind of difficulty. I welcome it. I could have continued, but seven circuits was fine. In times past when I've had one of these returns after a closure, I've never done more than five circuits. I thought it'd be nice to do a bit better in a small way. You always want to find some fresh take on improvement. Achieve something you haven't before, even if it's not a huge deal and of itself.

On Friday, it was in the low and mid-thirties, and I didn't run any stairs. I knew the warm weather was coming, and I wasn't in the mood for walking across that bridge for what would probably be one last time this year--at least until December--with the wind blowing hard, and then doing this again all wet on the way back. It's also not awful to pace yourself some when you're starting back up in the Monument.

On Saturday I walked ten miles, did my 100 push-ups, and ran five circuits of stairs in the Monument. I had a touch of soreness, though maybe that's overstating it. When I'm as I should be, I feel nothing in my muscles or joints. Only that they're there. The same, again, as when I was eight-years-old. This will be how it is soon, so long as I put the days in. The weather wasn't much better than the day before, but it was enough to matter. There's a difference between a winter's day and a cold spring day. Think of it like a tooth thing.

Quite a few people in the Monument Saturday, which meant quite a few stupid people. You could give someone a week to try and figure out why the railing is on the side it's on and what side they are supposed to be on, what side people are always supposed to be on even when they're not in this particular place with the railing on the left going up for what should be the very clear reason that it's for the people coming down because it's a much bigger deal to fall going down than going up, but they'd have nothing for you. They'd still get it wrong. Because people are mostly incapable of thinking now.

I wasn't having it, and had confrontations with like ten people. No patience. Get the hell out of the way. They stare at you like confused cows. I look at these people and I don't see how it would be possible for them to understand anything. It's mind blowing to me that we are technically members of the same species.

Because of these people it took a bit longer than it should have/I would've liked, but this is about getting my legs right which is less of a time/pace thing, so that's fine, and I had enough stretches where my lungs were challenged so I can make headway improving there as well.

Peppermint tea will put you right with any niggling discomfort, while also helping with heart health.

Here, prior to five AM on this Monday, is the plan. A new Bunker Hill Monument stairs season starts this Wednesday, March 11. The winter is in the past and it's time to ramp it up in earnest. This is where the 1000-circuits-in-a-year begins.

Yesterday marked 3521 days, or 503 weeks, without a drink. No stairs. All I did was walk a couple miles. I also had to wash the Bruins beanie I have been using when I run stairs to keep the sweat out of my eyes because it smelled like vomit and I couldn't stand it any longer. I should be able to go back to headbands soon instead. But yes, vomit. Very vomit redolent. When you can't take your own hat, you know it's a big problem.

I see a man on the internet getting in trouble from a remark he made last night, asking whether it's too much to expect women to be polite and say "hello" in response to a man saying "hello," when it's but a hello.

It's funny how lonely people keep themselves lonely. They aren't alone because they're geniuses and there's no one for them. No one who is close to smart enough. No one who can approximate a version of keeping up. They're no different than anyone else. No smarter. No more complex.

But they keep themselves alone. With animus. Their insecurity. The resulting projection. All of these miserable women who want to end this man. Human canker sores. Challenging him whether he ever says "hello" to a man in passing. Berating him. Accusing him.

I went to Trader Joe's on Saturday. The female cashier was quite rude to me. I'm in line, head up, so I can see where I'm supposed to go without delay as soon as a register opens up, so that I don't slow anyone down.

As I come over, I might be smiling. I feel like I look clear-eyed and approachable. I ask the person how they are doing. This woman didn't answer. She said nothing. Okay. When she asked if I wanted bags, I said please, that would be great. I thanked her multiple times before I left. That's what I do with everyone.

I do notice that quite a few women hate, on sight, an athletic-looking man. I have given over my entire life to art. I haven't been out on a single date since 2015. I am wholly alone. Despised. Discriminated against to an unfathomable degree. Well, it is fathomable, in that I document it here. But you'd have to read through quite a bit. Many do. There are those who know right now. There are others who will come to know. I am as deeply kind as is possible. My ethics couldn't be more rigorous or more rigorously vetted. My discipline. My commitment to doing what is right, no matter how hard it is. No matter how great my pain is. My suffering. I'm not some bro. I'm not like anyone there has ever been or will be.

But how I look--even something that trivial--is often an issue. There are times--it happens often in the Monument--when I can feel the bristling misandry of a person like this cashier. Whatever she may be thinking about me. Projecting on to me. This man who spent his morning creating art, reading a ballet dancer's memoir, breaking down the power play of the Colorado Avalanche, making notes for his Billie Holiday book.

These online harpies having at this fellow for his question would, if they're being consistent, think the way this cashier acted was a valid, and even correct, way to go. I understand that maybe someone was just awful to this woman. People are terrible, and retail is rough--worse than rough. It's one of the hardest things. But I'm pretty familiar with this kind of thing at the same time. Like everything, it's percentages. What are the chances are it's this, what are the chances are it's that? Could have been something else, and I almost always allow for something else. But I don't think this was.

Does one seriously think I wouldn't have helped an older man shovel out his car on my street like I did that woman I helped recently? She was attractive, yes. You think I helped her with an eye towards that leading to something more? The person who is smart enough--and I don't think they exist--will have to make themselves known to me by reaching out, or else I will meet them if and when I am ever out of this situation and move in different places with different visibility.

What do I mean by smart enough? Smarter than everyone else. By a lot. Which will still not bridge the gap between us at all. But that is what I would need. And for them to be a truly good person, and a strong person, as well. What are the chances? Speaking of probabilities. And in this world? That decays more by the hour? Whose people devolve more by the hour? With next to no one even trying to go against that current? Let alone being everything one would need to be in order to do so at all? I'm not looking for companionship for companionship's sake, because that isn't companionship anyway, let alone when you're me. I'm not looking for holes either, which is a lot of men.

I helped because someone needed help. Also, it's a good workout and I felt like I didn't do enough stairs at City Hall. And I like shoveling. I think it's good for you in body and soul. Do you disagree? Prefer just to sit it out? Well, I don't think that's going to be limited to shoveling.

Would you like to see some of the comments? And by some of the comments, I mean this is how all of the hundreds of comments go:

If you were doing to be polite you wouldn’t care about getting a response.

Women don’t owe you shit

Shut up and leave us alone

Yeeah… and of course you don’t want anything else after they hello you back

Women don’t owe men their attention.

It is in fact too much to ask.

Strangers owe you nothing. Don’t be creepy.

You’re not entitled to anyone’s time or attention.

Stop being weird. No one owes you anything.

Yes - leave us the fuck alone. Thanks!

Unless that hello is accompanied by "I'm sorry for everything"......

Well, the online battering you're certain to get because of this, you've brought on yourself, mate.

You are entitled to no one’s time. Leave strangers alone. If someone is interested in speaking with you, they will.

That last statement is remarkable, isn't it? You can't say hello to someone, because they are the god or goddess, and you will only respond when spoken to because you are lower. This person can't even see the hypocrisy, the inconsistency. They can't see how stupid they are; because that's how stupid they are.

These same people will bitch endlessly online about how dating apps don't work, "there's pee in the dating pool," when they're a veritable ocean of piss themselves.

It's you. It's almost always you. The chances of you being "different" are nil.

Especially now.

Many hateful, cat-fingering harridans posting those comments. Also, many pathetic men with beards meant to convey that they are "artsy" and "sensitive" who are hoping to get laid and would happily pull a Brock Turner and rape a passed out woman if that's what it took and they could verify no security cameras were in the vicinity.

You know the kind of guy. These days, they have all the right signage, don't they? The social justice signage. Ah, but I know what you're up to, fella. I know what puts that hamster wheel of a brain of yours in motion. I know that you're less real than a mirage in the desert.

These guys are like Lon Chaney in Son of Dracula. The bags show up, and instead of saying "Property of Count Dracula," they say, "Property of Count Alucard," which half a dozen characters keep repeating for the dimmest bulb out there that, "Holy shit! It's Dracula's name backwards! Maybe it could be him and that was his cover-up! Picking a new name that is the old name backwards!"

Same idea with these fucking guys.

I'll put up these key emojis, I'll say these three vapid slogans, I'll maintain my patchy beard...Count Alacard (totally not Dracula!) bitches!!!!! Time to help gang tackle some men online from my cowardly screenlit corner of the world so I can dip into them honey pots!!!! This will probably work someday!!!!!

Almost everyone in the world in 2026 is playing a one-dimensional character.

And people wonder why they're alone. They are so stupid, too, that they can't see that they're usually the source of their own profound misery. They're not involved in some all-time quest, some battle of good versus evil with real stakes for culture, society, the world, humanity. They're self-loathing. They live and breathe hate. Insofar as they live, which they don't.

We are now at the point where this is the norm. Where people can't understand why it would get someone down to walk past someone--say, in a hallway--and simply, politely, say, "Good morning," and be bothered that another person, a fellow human, isn't of sufficient moral fiber, is so impolite, so cold, or raised so poorly, or so warped with hate, that they can't say "good morning" back.

Yes, it's depressing. It's so fucking depressing. More depressing is that these people can't even see that they're in the wrong. As for someone owing you their time?

When I am coming down the stairs at City Hall during a workout--again, during a workout, so I'm actively doing this thing--and an older woman coming up the stairs smiles at me and says hello, am I giving her my time in saying hello back?

I'm right there. I'm not going over here to do this. I am right fucking there. I move my lips and tongue, I make a sound come out. It takes no time. It takes nothing. It takes not being a horrible person. Actually, it doesn't even take that. It takes not making this point of displaying, flaunting, what a horrible person I am.

And that's what people do. They whip others with just how horrible a person they are. If you walk past someone in a corridor, and they say hello, and you don't respond, that's hostile. It's a gesture of hostility. You are choosing to be hostile. Because that's the message you're sending. It's so needless, pointless. It's not a time thing, it's not a "So you're confirming that we'll be having a hot anal session tonight" thing.

You're creating an awkward situation. Sometimes, one has to say hi first. The situation becomes awkward only if two people pass in silence, or one says hello and is met with silence, which is a statement of loathing and turns a non-situation into a thing. A thing that's over, but there was that intent of making it a negative thing. Like, again, in the corridor, in the hallway. Downstairs in your building's laundry room when it's you and one other person.

Or else what the hell is that? That's creepy. I'm down in the basement, moving the clothes to the dryer, a woman comes down with her laundry, say "How are you?" and I say nothing because "I don't owe any motherfucker my time or a response"?

This is what the shared human experience has come to, is it?

Honestly. How twisted are people? How mentally ill do you have to be to get to a place where your brain is like "Yep, fuck them! You don't owe that person shit! Suck on my silence asshole!!!!"

The world is better off without people like this. It'd be better if they weren't here.

Then, they justify it. And find others to justify it for them. You end up with a world where most justify it, and that becomes the norm, the "way."

How unstable do you have to be to think that I would look at me responding to this elderly woman or not as her thinking I owed her?

How crazy are people now? But okay, drink that wine, have another quasi-inebriated Sunday night, finger Mr. Whiskers. Get on the internet. Spread your hate. Oh, look, yet more photos of yourself. Me me me me me me me. And, lest you forgot...me me me me me me me. Me me me me! I'm interested in no one but me despite how uninteresting I am! Me! Kill yourself in your latest daily installments, while technically remaining alive just to kill yourself some more and make the world worse.

Many men say hello to me. Of various ages. And no, it's not like bros recognize bros and be keepin' it real or whatever idiocy someone hell bent on playing devil's advocate might want to say.

When I'm returning from running stairs at City Hall and it's seven o'clock on a Saturday morning and I come down my street and a man is coming the other way walking his dog, what do you think usually happens? He says hello or good morning. I ask him how he's doing.

Less hateful women smile, or say hello. I've mentioned various times in this record when women say something to me at City Hall. Happened the other day.

I don't normally instigate these exchanges. I walk with my head up. I never put it down. This is something I decided on--as policy--after Molly did what she did. I realized that I never looked up. My head was always down. I said, "You will carry yourself better. You won't give in, even in this way. Pick up your fucking head and keep it up."

That's how I sometimes talk to myself, you see. It isn't a safe space. It's a real space. Things will be real here, just as I am always real.

On account of my head being up, eye contact sometimes happens, or happens more than it would, anyway, if my head were down. Nods are also exchanged. I smile at children frequently, and will shoot them a little wave when they are staring at me, as children do, once children lock in.

But yes, a man can just say hello to you. I experience this, as a man, regularly. Whether you're a woman, a man. A dog. One says hello back. You feel a little bit better. It's just nice. And I'm not exactly a fan of most people, am I?

That was the set-up, by the way, of this little scenario presented online. Not someone coming over at a bar and saying "hello" as the hoped-for start of something else. Rather, the hello in passing, like with these examples I gave of the checkout register, the City Hall stairs, the basement laundry room, the hallway at work which has no one else in but two people, a quiet, early morning street when you're passing on the same sidewalk.

Speaking of Trader Joe's and themes pertaining to health: People really like to go online and complain about the cost of food. They tell you how much they paid for such and such an item. Yesterday I saw where a woman said she paid $8 for a single red pepper.

Are people trying to pay more for food? That's how the whole delivery thing always strikes me. You could just go out and get whatever you're going to eat yourself.

Then there is Trader Joe's itself. The food is good. There are many healthy options. The prices are cheaper. Often significantly. Why not go there? Wouldn't that be a solution?

I don't get peppers at Trader Joe's, because I get them from Haymarket, where they are cheaper still. If I was to pay $8, that would be a minimum of eight peppers, and that's not when the deals are at their best at Haymarket. Usually I can do better.

Is Haymarket this unique thing? I'd think not. Trader Joe's are everywhere. What do you want that Trader Joe's doesn't have? What do you require?

I often feel like people do things just so they'll be able to complain about things they wouldn't be able to complain about if they did other things. Or that they can't figure out a better way to go when doing so requires hardly any thought at all, which is still going to be too much.

Vital update: Saw this morning when taking out the garbage that my boxers are no longer on display outside the building. A small but real victory for the neighborhood. The flag is no more.