Van Gogh and Thoreau lived in big houses

Wednesday 12/10/25

Van Gogh lived in big houses. Thoreau lived in a big house. Van Gogh made no money at all, Thoreau made very little. Here, have a big house.

My hair grows fast. I got it cut the shortest I've ever had it not that long ago, and already I could go back in. I'll space it out.

Didn't wear a belt the other day and if I didn't tend to the matter my jeans would hang around the middle of my ass. I had to keep pulling them up and trying to roll the waist over. I may look into making a change.

The best time of the year for running stairs in the Bunker Hill Monument is September I think. You can still wear shorts. I've underestimated how much better it is with fewer layers of clothing, having previously thought it doesn't matter--that is, the layers don't add up. They can effect performance both at the start and then more so as those layers become soaked through. In September you also have the benefit of the shape you are in from doing those sticky summer month workouts.

The Bunker Hill Monument stairs are like magical stairs for me. I have no twinges as I may on other stairs. They are recuperative. My first time up is typically my hardest time, which you wouldn't expect. After that, it's as if my body settles into this routine, a zone, a deep state of breathing. The first circuit is almost against the Monument, if you will, and then the others are with the Monument. It's a very different kind of thing.

Being a creative means...

Never has, and never would, an actually creative person refer to themselves as a creative.

I'm sure the NCAA loves all the complaints about the playoff selections. So much attention! People get on social media and bitch and take these moral stands--people who have less moral fiber than a jellyfish--about how they're done with college football, they'll never watch again, that's it, and oh yeah, they're getting rid of their streaming services too!

I find myself wondering if these people even have a second where they successfully fool themselves. They probably do. A big part of being them is predicated on fooling themselves.

You know what the most dangerous kind of a liar is? It's not just someone who lies to you constantly. It's someone who lies to themselves at the same time. Because then it's like they can't stop. Lying is so natural to them that they think they're telling the truth. They've gotten themselves to believe it. That's how ingrained being a liar is for that person.

No one is going to stop watching. Americans are simple, ignorant, overweight, and illiterate. By and large. Right? What else are they going to do? Immerse themselves in nature? Commence a study of opera? Set themselves a project of reading all of Dorothy L. Sayers?

Hell no. They're going to sit, and not move, and eat, and drink, and watch, and drool, and make stupid jokes and remarks to stupid people who are also make stupid jokes and remarks that take the exact same form as what the person next to them is saying and that everyone like these people is saying on social media and out in the street.

They aren't going to develop other interests. It'd never occur to them. People need to get their marching orders from what everyone else is doing. Doesn't matter what that thing is. And what do the most people do? The most brainless things that require no thought from them. Better if they also needn't move. And can clog some arteries.

Many people--but mostly women--describe their social media feed as their diary or journal, but none of those people would actually keep a diary or journal. They present what they're doing--the sharing of their mental tripe--as if they were working through some issues. Getting in better touch with the self. Which you could do privately. They aren't posting what they post for anyone else's edification. A bit of someone else's instructive, relatable light for your personal dark.

It's just banalities. "I ate so much ice cream lol." Yes. You're so very witty. Then, another moron-load hits that like button, because they'd like to eat so much ice cream. That's a great idea. And then they do. And if you post that, you'll get more likes, more traction, I suppose, if that's what we're calling it, than if you ever posted anything interesting and important and useful.

And people seriously don't get how this works yet.

All the "diarist" wants is attention. When all you want is attention, it's impossible for you not to be a disaster inside. A broken mess.

Here's one:

My favorite thing about living alone is how hard I cackle to TikTok videos

Don't forget getting wine drunk and momming the cat.

"Cackle" is a word that the hollowed-out and dimwitted use frequently to attest that 1. They are witty and 2. They are so free spirited! Why, look how hard they throw back their head and laugh! They just let 'er rip! Knowingly! Even their laughter conveys incisive awareness and provides commentary!

Imagine what the above would actually look like. Say you were hanging out with God and God said, "Hey, check out this behind-the-scenes video," and it was of someone in a robe with the wine forcing themselves to laugh hard--to crazy cackle, because they'd sound out of their mind--at TikTok alone in their place. At forty-seven.

How sad would that be? How much sadder is it to lie about doing this? And use it as some form of assertive justification. Which is what it's intended as, no? Again, "I'm so free, I'm so feral"--another word such people love/overuse/wouldn't know if millions exactly like them weren't doing the exact same thing--"I'm living my best life, I'm protecting my peace, blah blah blah."

This is not a path to wellness. Neither doing this nor pretending to do this for a dysfunctional kind of internet clout/attention.

Also: No intelligent adult would voluntarily watch TikTok videos. That would make for what we call an oxymoron.

It is looking to me like the Red Sox are going to do very little this off-season or, at best, sign a mid-tier player or two. Their official position will be that they have all of these great young players ready to take the next step and build off of last year's successful season. The Red Sox of now can only make the postseason because so many teams do. The Red Sox of the past made the postseason--when it was harder--because they signed big-time players. A franchise like the Red Sox should have superstars.

My sister sent me a video of my nephew's Christmas pageant for school, in which he and some other boys sang "Hallelujah," a strange choice for such an affair. I'm sure someone looked at the title and thought, "That word means Christmas."