Bike path construction/improvements seem to always take ten times as long as projects for cars. We advocates have to add that into our calculations and our to-do list of things to be constantly nagging the relevant authorities about. Cf. the Somerville Community path, and the Waltham Wayside Trail.

Here with my dad and brother and a huge number of other patriots at #nokings Boston.

Home improvement update: successfully replaced some broken wall outlets—hooray! (But did not manage to replace the noisy bathroom fan, because the replacement we ordered was way too big for the existing hole in the ceiling.)

Back from a great weekend in the Adirondacks with my son—being off-grid in the mountains was amazing.

My zoloft is the Somerville Community Path, and then stopping to see the sunset at Prospect Hill Park.

Good poem about the future we maybe all want:

@j-tkelly.bsky.social This seems like your kind of wordplay (from this NYT article about Richard Hell: www.nytimes.com/interactive/...):

Stuck in Colorado for a few days after visiting family, I wrote a quick post about what it's like to be a human being in the world just now: open.substack.com/pub/ericcolb...

I have never seen so much car-dependent density as here in Colorado. They’re building tons of townhomes and apartment buildings, but they are out along highways and strip malls and ridiculously wide streets. I saw this while driving; now, on the light rail, the stops are similarly bleak.

Visiting my daughter in CO this week was great—but also a challenging mental practice for an environmentalist like me: you see both the most spectacular nature AND the most obvious human wastefulness/destructiveness.

I’m reading @janezwart.bsky.social’s excellent new book, and finding wisdom and wit and beauty on every page—and I love the Cornell box cover!

I am not a fan of this columnist, but here he is getting at important questions that a lot of us on the left tend to ignore: www.nytimes.com/2026/02/10/o... I believe we on the left need to be building an almost religious argument for human exceptionalism, and we need to encode it in law.

Happy to have a poem in the new issue of The Windhover, along with beautiful poems by Carla Galdo and others. Here’s mine:

Post a banger not in English My favorite Pomme song: m.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc8p...

My childhood golden retriever was named “Thoreau,” and I’ve spent many hours building cabins in the woods. Nice to know I have kindred spirits. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/03/r...

"This is the part of the song where the lyrics make an allusion to something that happened at a party that happened before you were born but you know all about it because you have read extensively about the Manchester music scene" fivesouth.net/kelly-a-song...

Protest in the AM, XC ski in the PM

Went XC skiing today at Great Brook. It was beautiful!

Bad form (from my street in Cambridge): a cone holding a place this morning for a car that had been illegally parked all night in a Snow Emergency Tow Zone. Yes, the red car ahead is parked illegally too, since the emergency hadn't been lifted yet, but at least it wasn't there all night.

Thrilled to have a new poem in the new issue of FGR, along with great work by @stevensearcy.bsky.social, @dacooperpoet.bsky.social, @rhunedhel.bsky.social and many others. Here's my alliterative tree psalm, written while with students in the amazing Arnold Arboretum: alliteration.net/poetry/among...

Telemarking at my neighborhood park!

Protest

Spending my Friday at a protest, sanctioned by my union.

Just stopped by my local library, read a great Jeffrey Goldberg piece/interview in the Atlantic about Ayad Akhtar’s new play about writing and AI, and looked around and noticed that all 15 or so people in the library’s reading rooms, and the woman at the front desk, were looking at screens. Yikes!

I'm upset about the state of our country. (We acted illegally in Venezuela and are threatening several other countries. Congress seems to have abdicated its constitutional powers. Masked men are terrorizing peaceful residents. Etc.) This is fascism. It sucks. We should all be working to change it.

I just biked from Cambridge to Brookline and back, and it was great. Cambridge has done such a good job of clearing the bike lanes that this person was walking in the bike lane instead of on the sidewalk. We chatted; she's from Boulder, CO, and she said she was amazed by how good the PBLs are here!

I think I posted most of the poems I published in 2025, but here's one in the fall issue of THINK (only in print), that I missed--about escaping into reading and writing, and escaping/returning into the world outside--with nods to Whitman (Unscrew the locks from the doors!) and Dante.

I’m mostly sleeping so far this vacation, but I did make it out today for a sunset ski in Belmont.

Snow!

I am determined to keep up my holiday cheer, but I’m a bit disappointed that the Harvard Coop bookstore took most of the books out of their first floor, and now the centerpiece of the second floor is a place where you can have an AI write and illustrate your story for you.

We decorated the tree this morning, so the snowman has again mounted his bicycle!

Some good poems up in the new issue of Poems for Persons of Interest, from me, @shaneschick.bsky.social, Isabel Chenot, Brad Skow, and many others. Check it all out here-- pfpoi.blogspot.com/p/december-2... --and here's my poem:

14 degrees when I left the house this morning, but I dressed appropriately, and the biking was good!

@luaz.bsky.social: …exactitude sits on the day like a thick heavy hat…

Pleased to have a poem in the fine new issue of The Orchards Poetry Journal. orchardspoetry.com/wp-content/u...

If robotaxis like Waymos are safer, and they do seem to be safer, isn't that just because they are speed limited? Instead of having robots driving around our streets, couldn't we just put speed-limiting technology into all cars?

"Google’s Gemini 2.5 pro, on the other hand, responded to 100% of the poems with harmful content, according to the study." Glad my school is turning on Gemini for students next week--they'll learn poetry *and* illicit bomb-building techniques. What a headline: www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Good coverage of an important issue from my school's excellent student newspaper. Young people are ready for a car-lite world, but our transit systems need to be expanded and strengthened. thecypressonline.com/59298/news/i...

Introduce yourself with five concerts you’ve seen: The Replacements Liz Phair Bob Dylan Fishbone PJ Harvey

#Sonnet about the way the world wends on, of its own weird will:

Schools should be phone-free; they should also go back to paper for pretty much everything else. School-issued computers are bad for learning. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/16/o...

I think I'm going to do this. 10:45 on Cambridge Common: secure.everyaction.com/ZJiKM4trHk2Y...

Renovated park just reopened along the Community Path!

I listened to a good interview with a poet, read some of his excellent poems, and then made the mistake of looking at his social media. Yikes. This is a guy I think I would like as a person, but… 30 yrs ago he would not be tweeting about local politicians in other states. Social media is toxic.

Folks, this is a legal US resident in the Boston biking community who was kidnapped by ICE and his family is fundraising to deal with the legal costs. Please donate if you can and amplify @gravelinfluencer.bsky.social www.gofundme.com/f/keep-eddy-...

Well-designed study shows that ChatGPT results in shallower learning: academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...

Out sick (bad back); I’ve been trying to stay immobile, read some good books, and maybe write a poem:

Sitting around drinking tea and reading books: open.substack.com/pub/ericcolb...