Columnists

A father’s work is never done.

Kathy said she was beginning to get depressed by the news. I asked her what she was reading, and she said, “The New York Times, The Guardian U.S.A., The Guardian U.K., The Washington Post, The Daily Beast, the Huffington Post, Politico, Axios, Raw Story, The Los Angeles Times, the Atlanta Constitution, the Miami Herald, the Austin Statesman, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Alaska Daily News, The Boston Globe, The Portland (Me.) Press Herald, Corriere della Sera, Salon, Slate, and Vanity Fair.”

And this all before 6 a.m.

Monday, which was a bit of a surprise. The boat mover let me know the evening before that he had a spot in his schedule to take it from behind the office to Three Mile Harbor. What I expected was that there would be space in the boatyard to put it up on stands for a few days or a week before it could be launched.

My friend Antonia once said that she loved riding around with me in the white Chevy van that The Star used to use for newspaper deliveries. I would borrow the van on weekends in the 1990s, when I lived in the city and didn’t own a car of my own, barreling around to late-night beach skinny-dip sessions or afternoon Bargain Box runs with WLNG blaring. These were the days when the newspaper van had a Star logo, “Shines for All,” in mid-blue on either side panel. “In this van,” Antonia said, “I feel like you get to be both super-local but also respected by the city people.

“My, how you’ve aged . . .”

Usually I can sleep forever, but not lately. There’s an ache in there, around the gluteus medius, that builds until there’s nothing to be done but get up.

It is hard to know how well the point got across Tuesday evening after work, when I tried to explain — in Spanish — East Hampton Village’s leaf blower law to a nice young man using one to tidy up the driveway behind The Star.

Where have all the parties gone?

Naomi Osaka first said that she’d be absenting herself from media interviews at the French Open, and then promptly passed on the whole shebang. Wringing of hands ensued.

I was telling Mary that I’d dreamed of a former boss dressed in a Santa suit, and she asked if I’d asked for a raise. Dream on, I said.

Lately I have been leaving the house early to get to the office by 6 to write before the distractions of the day begin.

I may have mentioned this before, but I enjoy walking in the middle of the road.

Patchogue: Good for more than just thrift stores.

Spring was in the air, and so, evidently, was my head, for I had no idea until the middle of the following day that I had left my camera behind at Mashashimuet Park’s diamond.

East Hampton Village officials have been exceedingly busy in sprucing up the business district. But to what end?

I was surprised, when I lived in rural Canada, to discover that not everyone in the Western world owns as much stuff as Americans do.

May 17: Maybe that can be another “new normal.” It’d be good to get Tax Day a bit away from a risen Christ and the Easter Bunny.

I probably should buy “Computers for Dummies,” but, given all the advances, it might be antiquated already.

The second round of dandelions has begun. Their bright yellow heads are close to the ground for the moment, as the seed puffs bob, waiting for a gust of wind.

It’s hard to remember what it felt like to walk around light and airy, believing that the world was getting better every passing year — rather than walking around as I do these days, with the chronic, sciatic understanding that everything is going to hell in a handbasket.

The high school prom: fun or fraught?

While it would be nice to write off all state income and property taxes, as we used to, I’m willing to stand the gaff if it means that President Biden’s broad spending plan will pass. The New York legislators who have said they won’t vote for the bill if our state income and property tax write-offs remain capped at $10,000, should abandon that stand in favor of the greater good.

I had a feeling that Tuesday morning was going to be weird. When Weasel, the Lab mix, rousted me around 4:30 to go outside, the peeper frogs in the swamp were especially worked up and a whippoorwill sang from a tree in the driveway so close that I could hear a clicking he made between choruses. Click. Whip-poor-will. Click. I went back upstairs and put my head down on a pillow.

Have you seen the commercial for Extra sugar-free gum, set “sometime in the not too distant future,” in which — as Celine Dion sings “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now” — citizens freed from lockdown rush giddily into the streets, pop a spearmint slice into their mouth, and leap into the arms of strangers to make out?

A soaring vertical space broken up by horizontal catwalks, railings, and landings. This is what preservation can look like . . .

A fellow tennis player said the other day that he assumed I’d not been very busy lately, though I assured him I had been inasmuch as the high school teams had been pretty much in full swing since the end of February.

Nothing screams “suburban streetscape!” quite so loudly as Belgian block.

My son, bless his cotton socks, is of a scientific mind.

History runs deep on the South Fork, and well recorded is the spelling Noyack, not Noyac. With the all-important K.

This may not be the best advertisement for the book of “Point of View” columns I intend to publish, a book to be known as “Essays From Eden,” but Mary nearly keeled over in proofreading them this past week.