I know, I know: Two blog posts in the same decade. Crazy.

I won’t blog as often as I used to, I promise, but I’ll try to get here when I’ve got downtime from what’s become my day job, post-retirement: Freelance writing.

I was invited to speak to a university class of grad assistants about creativity last year and I started by telling them the least creative thing I could think of, and that was that if they did any freelance writing, they should keep good track of their invoices.

So as a freelance writer who takes my own advice, I did some invoice work last night and this morning and then made some calls for some upcoming articles and did a little research on what might turn out to be a pretty interesting piece.

And around the edges of all that, I took in a little entertainment.

Despite the cable and streaming services we subscribe to, I’m not watching a ton of movies and TV unless it’s something I’ll write about. But strangely, I find that I spend a lot of time – for entertainment and for research for articles – on TCM.

A few years ago, I didn’t watch a ton of TCM, most often classic horror movies in the run-up to Halloween, but it’s become comfort food to me now.

As I’ve gotten older.

And as TCM began airing more movies from the 1960s and 1970s and 1980s, sometimes in “normal” TCM and sometimes in overnight TCM, especially the “TCM Underground” time slot late Friday Nights and early Saturday morning. In those hours, they’re likely to play bizarre ’70s sci-fi and horror and blaxploitation films and lately that’s been my comfort food. That and noir movies of the type I’ve written about lately.

When I was working in news – and I still am, only freelance now – I always felt I had to be current. I couldn’t dip too much into nostalgia for fear of seeming out of touch. At least that was my worry.

Now, around the edges of my writing, I’m finding time to watch some old movies and TV shows. Be assured that some of them are for articles I’m writing.

But some of this old pop culture is for pure enjoyment.

I figured out that I shouldn’t be worried about looking backward too much. I wrote a novel set in 1948 and I’m working on a novel set in October 1984, so I’m enjoying looking backward for those purposes.

It’s that looking backward sometimes helps us look ahead, and nostalgia helps us appreciate the time we came from and the time we’re in. Maybe the time we’re headed, too.

I’ll probably touch on some of this nostalgic stuff as this blog continues (assuming it will). You’ll probably also find it in some of the pop culture pieces I write.

Nostalgia isn’t bad for you and it’s not just for old people.

And you know what? It’s okay when it hits that sweet spot, and when it does act as comfort food.

(Above: Billy Wilder’s 1951 classic “Ace in the Hole.” The movie is set way back in the day but it has a lot to say about today. TCM has it, either on demand or through the HBO Max streaming service. Criterion has it too.)