A woman wrote me today to report that her early afternoon rest was interrupted by a woodpecker ringing her doorbell.

A woodpecker. Ringing her doorbell.

It’s not exactly Poe’s raven croaking “nevermore” but it’s something. And I’m sure it really happened and that this woman is not insane at all. Tomorrow she will contact me to relate that the red-headed bird is now calling her incessantly on the phone or dropping her instant messages through Yahoo. Because that is what perfectly sane people do when they are being stalked by birds.

• At Percy’s Burrow on Sunday, dozens of you good people turned out for my book signing and we unloaded every copy we had brought to sell. I love you dedicated readers. Really, I do. Want to hang out sometime? Maybe catch a movie?

I’m lonely.

• On Halloween night, deep in the woods of Conway, N.H., I watched “Halloween,” “Straight Jacket,” “The Devil’s Rejects” and “The Changeling” without pause. By the darkest hour of night, I was no longer comfortable going out onto the screen porch to smoke.

Fear is what the grand holiday is all about, and if you can inflict a hefty dose of it upon yourself, brother, that’s a good Halloween.

• Who among you feels I have been using “brother” as a term of endearment too often lately? I catch myself doing these things, you know. Like when I was using “probe” in place of “investigation” in crime stories.

I really am an undisciplined slob.

• It’s 4 p.m. as I write. It’s cold as barbed wire and getting dark outside. Baseball season is gone. Halloween is over. There will be no more long, warm nights when the sun’s glow hangs on the rim of the world until 9:30 p.m. November is the portion of the calendar afflicted with leprosy. So how am I coping with this onslaught of dark times?

I’m not. Please hold me.

• Why isn’t hulking and surly sportswriter Randy Whitehouse a syndicated columnist? Sure, his World Series predictions were terrible, and sure, he’s as grouchy as a cop with a hangover, and sure, he’s like the abusive older brother I never wanted. But he’s better than the best as a writer, and his circulation would be as big as his freakishly huge feet.

• Lewiston is a strange place. A year or so ago, I was irritated daily by panhandlers with ridiculous stories about bus fare and ailing mothers. A year or so ago, I maintained an unhealthy fascination with hookers who walked their jittery walks up and down Bates Street. Now nobody hits me up for money outside corner stores and prostitutes no longer approach my car with that look of mingled lust, disdain and desperation.

Where do these people go? Where do butterflies go when it rains?

• Furthermore, where is City Administrator Jim Bennett? It used to be he was out cutting ribbons or imposing taxes on things like bumper stickers and I could incite his wrath in two out of every three columns. Now, I never see or hear from him and I worry that the woodpeckers might have gotten him. Are you out there, Ginjo? Would it kill you to call me once in a while?

• I found ironic the story about a young pagan who claimed his rights were violated when he was ordered to remove a mask while in class at the Lewiston Regional Technical Center. Turns out the reason he was asked to move the feathered mask, in addition to threats from school bullies, was because security rules insist that all students reveal their faces. But that’s not the ironic part. The ironic part is that here at the Sun Journal, I am actively encouraged to wear a mask over my face every day. In fact, if I come into the newsroom, several co-workers will actually provide me with various items, including paper bags, to conceal my mug.

We really are a tolerant bunch. I am blessed to work here.

• Did I read, while I was on vacation, that a kid who embedded the business end of an ice chopper into a man’s skull was sentenced to three years in prison?

Really? Three years for driving skull fragments into a stranger’s brain and sending him into a coma? Isn’t three years the kind of sentence you get if you take insider tips while investing your money or if you operate a brothel without a proper license?

I suppose the prosecutor will insist she weighed the evidence and decided to spare the taxpayers the time and expense of a trial. I earnestly wish the prosecutor would quit looking out for our piggy banks in times like these.

Three years. Really?

• That clicky thing that opens my wife’s car doors broke while I was on vacation and now I feel embarrassed and indignant when I’m in a parking lot. Wouldn’t want anyone to see me using a key to open the doors like a caveman, you know.

My own car has crank windows and one that doesn’t go up or down at all and I’m fine with it. There’s some weird psychology going on there, but let’s not dwell.

• Why is there a rise of question talkers lately? Do I despise question talkers? Yes, I do.

So you see what I’m doing here, right? I’m thinking in print and spewing nonsense onto your breakfast table while you’re trying to enjoy those burned eggs. But I’m also not talking about all that big stuff that happened yesterday because I know you stayed up until 3 a.m. checking the results and you don’t need some peon like me evaluating it for you.

I just want you to know, dear reader, that in these times of uncertainty and encroaching fear, you can always count on me to say nothing of value whatsoever. Because I care for you. Because I am committed to the insipid.

Because a wise woodpecker told me that this is what must be done and woe befalls he who ignores a wood-boring bird.

Mark LaFlamme is the Sun Journal crime reporter. You can contact him at [email protected] or, if you’re a woodpecker, by ringing his doorbell at the darkest hour of night.