Naledi

 January 30, 2026

For the second week in a row, public run on grocery stores for supplies for a winter disaster foretold. I’m not fleeing to the beach this time. That will probably be a mistake. 

Chaotic but amusing rehearsal last night. Good fellowship, good-enough music making if what you want is good fellowship.  

Four days without alcohol. Without craving and never impaired, I didn’t worry about this issue until several health professionals recently wondered if I should cut down. “No problem,” I said, until I decided to do it, and the idea made me grumpier than I thought it would, reaching that end taking more determination than I imagined. A hill, but a little one. I like to do it, and invariably do it where it has never had much consequence. Drinking is part of my night ritual, but by that I mean the intake of liquids: turns out tea will do just as well. I sense practically no difference in my life, except that I can sleep longer sober, wake up less abruptly. I’m not sure those are necessarily improvements. But also, my dreams are vaster and more durable, able to return after a trip to the bathroom, able to mutate into epics. I like the feeling of going to bed tipsy. Also, I hear alarming creakings and scrapings in the house that I don’t hear inebriated. Anyway, the alarm abates somewhat, seeing how stopping is possible, so merely cutting back remains an option. 

Cold. You spend some time deciding what to wear indoors so you can be warm enough for the cold spots in the house, and yet endure the overheated ones. Tied a towel around the outdoor spigot, as if it were a little animal that could generate its own heat. Filled all the bird feeders.

Watched a documentary about the Naledi, a diminutive species of the genus Homo that seems to have been burying their dead with some ceremony and carving their emotions on cave walls a quarter of a million years ago. The experience was holy. We do not understand the abundance– no, infinitude– and variety of the stories of this little world.