This afternoon the sky has lost its pest-fire sickliness in the intermittent washout of rain, but we are into the red blobs on the map and I am using my inhaler. I dreamed of a supporting character from Winterset (1936) as if during the prologue to the plot. I feel brainless and abraded.

Because I had Felled's "Fire Season on the Outer Rim" (2017) on my mind after this ash-fall week, I was reminded that I had never gotten hold of their sophomore LP The Intimate Earth (2021) and behold, there's another bog body in "Sphagnum in the Hinterlands."

I put another pin in the awfulness of the last two years by the fact that I missed the existence of Emmett Nahil's From the Belly (2024), which looks rather barnacle-crusted to my interests. I am not sure I even agree with the author's assertions about the foundations of nautical horror, but I like his passionate championing of Melville over Lovecraft. I never recomended Avi Burton's "We Are All in the Same Boat" (2026).

I meant to grab a copy of M.A. Knight's Feverchain (2026) while I was still at Readercon, but after a lovely and too-brief interaction with the author and the designer in between panels I never made it back into the dealer's room. If we shared the same social media, I could ask if they would be at NecronomiCon.

I would cheerfully read further adventures of this psychogeographer in Albuquerque, but this one stands as an excellent one-shot for anyone who cares about land, water, and the Situationist International: Rath Mercury, "Herkimer Inquiries" (2026).

Yesterday the most complicated thing I did was take a walk, read two novels, and reconstruct my long-lost favorite burger from Christopher's with pepper jack, avocado, and homemade chipotle mayo on an English muffin. I watched a movie for the first time in ages, even if I do not seem possessed of the intellect to do anything about it. It was nice. I am tired of the most boring people in the world doing so much to harm it.