Another "doesn't-fit-in-the-box, doesn't-even-care" cat photo.

Big petrichor morning. Fingers crossed we get some rain.

My 14yo just said he's concerned that if people get Neuralink chips in their heads, corporations will just put ads in their dreams.

I'm reading @sgj.bsky.social's Buffalo Hunter Hunter right now, and it is a bullet train. Passages of this book have left me breathless. I haven't been this immersed in a novel in as long as I can remember.

Im gonna go cash out some of my 401k and get another box of Sumo tangerines.

Two or three times today I felt deeply wonderful, like I did right after I graduated from college. I swear if it's because I did those arm flapping exercises this morning, I'm going to be furious.

Tonight I'm listening to deep Death Cab cuts.

My son is writing a song about when he would stop on his way home from school when he was little to visit an elderly neighbor. The chorus goes: Talking like old friends It didn’t matter I was ten Kicking up the road You’re at the end as I begin

My favorite text message is the one that comes from the school district saying there's been a measles exposure at my kid's school.

Lunch time jam is Diggable Planets. Reachin' (A New Refutation of Time and Space. — "I'm peace like dat."

Junk email management is taking up so much of my time. And junk texts, and junk phone calls.

Not watching the Grammies but writing songs with my kid, and his is about visiting the elderly neighbor lady when he was ten, and—shut up, I just have some dust in my eye. That's all.

Working on a sad song today, and I rhymed "in the window" with "diminuendo" and I'm a little bit pleased with myself.

Doesn't fit. Doesn't care.

I am enjoying the weekly 4pm shutting of work email. It can all wait until Monday.

Props to the human being Jamiroquai-ing this light pole.

I would read more fantasy novels if there was stuff like skijoring in them. Fritz Leiber used to do stuff like this all the time in the Fafhrd and Grey Mouser stories.

I am taking the edge off the morning with Elton John's Tumbleweed Connection.

My kid has range. Right after the clarinet part of the show, he said, "If any of you were in middle school band, it's cool if you go pick up your instrument."

When it came out, I thought Burn After Reading was mid Coen Brothers. I have since recanted, and I almost can't deal with accuracy of its prescience.

The Baron guards my sumos.

The afternoon music is Court and Spark by Joni Mitchell. It's helping replace the bitterness with genius.

On my Monday photo adventure downtown, I spotted this surreal moment. Ceci n'est pas Cedar Breaks.

Hot take: C grades should be 40-60%.

"Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?" is a John Belushi line I have thought about a lot today.

I'm here for this Titanic ratio.

Today in screen aesthetics I'm teaching Renoir's Rules of the Game. Not gonna lie, a farce about the rich right before WWII hits differently this year.

Going to the local meeting of our Utah native plants society tonight. It feels like the set up for a cozy mystery novel—Death Among the Penstemons.

I took this photo of this glass in my town yesterday, then realized it's also in one of the greatest movie scenes of the last 20 years. I'm so proud of myself for noticing.

My teenage son and I prefer the term "Clanker Slop" for its accuracy and musicality.

Today in advanced fiction I'm teaching about "the flâneur" and the "shut in." Getting some fun ideas about the inward gaze versus outward.

The Prime Minister of Norway should write back and say, "Sir, this is a Wendy's."

The 14yo and I went on a downtown street photography walk today. I caught him framing something up.

Blew a fuse on my amp. Got to the hardware store with 10 mins to spare. I am back in business, with a back up fuse now. Always have a back up.

Don't worry, everyone. It's going to be fine. AI will start having ads soon, so we won't even need the internet, or bodies.

She growls, "I fits. I fits. Stop talking to me right now."

Last night I felt nudged to stop by the record store. The owner, a widow and an old friend, was there alone, knitting. We talked, and I asked if she could special order something for me. Then she said she was so lonely. We talked for a long time. It's good to follow those feelings when they come.

My plan this morning was to bribe myself to grade with the promise of a cronut. Readers, it worked!

I got my 14yo a digital camera, and today he said, "Campus has some really nice scenery." Readers, I think we're entering a delightful phase of teenageriness.

Whenever I invoice for something, I always feel like it'll turn Wimpyward when they receive it.

Today, someone at the library circulation desk said, "Dr. P, this old guy named Bob comes in here every morning to read the newspaper. He said he's been reading your books, and he likes them a lot." That's the most wonderful thing a writer could possibly hear.

In my writing classes I often describe the book Peter Rabbit as a story in which a mother tells her son, "Please don't go to the place where your father was murdered."

My ancestors come from Denmark. The ancestral farm there is called Lysgaard, light field. At one point in history some of us were vikings, berserkers.

Yesterday my son and I were asked to play guitar and lead songs at a candlelight vigil for Renee Good in our town. It was such a moving way to shift from doom scrolling to community building. And what a powerful thing for us to do that together.

Earlier today I was scrolling and listening to Curtis Mayfield. It sort kept things in balance...I think.

AI shouldn't be allowed to make any decisions without a chain of responsibility leading to single human being who is responsible for that decision.

Snow and wind and slush yesterday. Everything frozen today. Around here, the January to February run is the hard one.

This morning, to fight both edtech and algorithms, I hand-wrote tiny notes to all my screenwriting students, who I have had before in storytelling. I welcomed them back and said I was excited to have their (insert one of their individual strengths) back in the room.

First day of classes for me, or as they said back in olden times. "Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more."

My 2026 resolution is to learn to play one new song on the guitar each week. I want to learn songs people know and love. Singable songs. I'd love some suggestions, please.