I’m still staying off the wine. Much to my dismay it feels like it might be working. I’m not exactly an unstoppable force of nature, but I don’t have the general, low-level inertia that seems to hang around me most days.

I start the day by going back to a story I wrote last November. It was one of those stories that was just missing something. I haven’t yet figured what it’s missing, but I at least know where the gap is and–more importantly–I’m excited about revisiting it. It’s a story that, at least in part, was inspired by the deep funk I found myself in last November in the wake of Trump being elected: work was a daily horror show; sleep seemed the only respite; and my youngest was waking me up at least once a night. I decided to pour some of this into a story. It’ll be interesting going back and playing with some of those darkest of dark building blocks.