Today is Mary’s official birthday. I say official, because we’ve been celebrating for a full week leading up to it, with multiple presents and cards. And we’ll celebrate again today with more.

Sal Buscema was as important to the Bronze Age of Marvel Comics as Jack Kirby was to the Silver Age foundation of that same universe. There are many folks my age who, when we think of the Marvel universe of characters, immediately picture his depictions of those characters.

There’s a new feral outside. Don’t know it was just passing through or if it’s looking for a place to live. I hope and pray it’s not pregnant or doesn’t have a litter hidden somewhere. I made swordfish for dinner last night. After Mary and I were done I put the scraps outside.

I think maybe it was David J. Schow who once told me that the desk in Robert Bloch’s office faced away from the window and the gorgeous view outside, so that Bloch could focus on the work. When I inherited J.F. gonzalez’s desk, the only place it would fit in my office was between two big windows facing the river.

…the one-two punch of Diamond and Baker & Taylor combined with tariff uncertainty, shipping delays, and a weakening economy is going to have snowballing repercussions throughout 2026 and into 2027. Buckle up.

which means that every five minutes, somebody is checking to see if I need anything — coffee, tea, meatballs, pasta, cookies, bourbon, a random jar of pickles from the back of the fridge — whatever is available. I know this is done out of love, and I am touched and grateful, but… it’s hard to work that way.

… to farm outrage engagement on social media, and then comparing and complaining about the results. More users blocked him on the platform than even the official ICE account. In my opinion, it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving individual.

I am very proud to accomplish anything under these working conditions.

In 2026, not even the weathermen know wtf is going on.

Chris and I signed the contract for OPERATION LITTLE GOLDEN BOOK, which is the codename I’ve given to our next anthology project. You may remember that THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT: NEW TALES OF STEPHEN KING’S THE STAND had a codename of OPERATION WALKABOUT.

Remember when I first relaunched this Blog and we talked about social media algorithms and how they are fragmenting us as a society and a community and how people are not getting the information they need because the algorithm decides they shouldn’t see it?

Saw on Facebook that some folks missed the deadline to apply for AuthorCon VI programming. Don’t despair. Just hold off until the preliminary schedule is released later this week, and then follow the directions released with that, and we’ll get you taken care of.

Spring and summer, the river echoes with a constant barrage of droning jet skis and revving speedboats and chugging boat motors and five hundred different kinds of musical genres blasted from five hundred different kinds of boats, and yet they all invariably seem to be blasting either Jimmy Buffet, Lee Greenwood, or various badly autotuned hip-hop songs.

So… yeah. Interesting and confusing legacy. On the one hand, he is responsible for introducing Gen X to these parapsychological ideas. On the other hand, he made most of it up, and borrowed heavily from Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos while also swiping (uncredited) from Robert Charroux's One Hundred Thousand Years of Man's Unknown History and other sources that pre-dated his work.

Big progress made yesterday. The old warehouse was completely emptied and everything is now in a new, secure, and not halfway underwater facility.

we really don’t need to hear “Brandy (You’re A Fine Girl)” every hour on the hour. That song isn’t good the first time you hear it, and repeated plays don’t improve it.

I could have counted on two hands the times I’ve overslept in life, and still had spare fingers left over to make obscene gestures.

That is morally wrong, and we as a society should be able to agree that it is unacceptable… Whose voices will be louder? Those who can still think independently of the algorithm, or the doe-eyed, slack-jawed zombies pushing their cart with one hand and staring at their phones with the other?

My other indecision this morning involves this left brain / right brain (or, as an old girlfriend used to call it, “left Brian / right Brian”)…