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Windows wide, birds chirping front and back, Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony fills the house. Life could be worse. … Continue reading
Category Archives: writing
Rest in peace, Suki. Littlest Kitty, Squirt, faithful companion. Shoulder rider, lap sitter, mouse catcher, jumper. Lover of chin scritches and forehead scritches and string cheese and pizza sauce. Head butter, snuggler, blinds cord chewer, prancer. Algebra proofreader, bookbinding assistant. … Continue reading
Notes to self, part 437. When I am at my desk, preparing for tonight’s observing. And it is evening. If an email arrives from the satellite tracking app, you could open it. Be aware that this alert is for tonight. … Continue reading
Star guts. Ground mountains. Seething motion unseen. Organism detritus. Feculence. Bug poop. _____ Knees pop as I bend down and pinch a gram of soil between my fingers. I bring it up to my face: grains, and the filler between the grains. I am looking at … Continue reading
Given the widespread unreason in this mind-numbing political season, how can one cut through the din to make a good decision on who should be our Democratic presidential candidate? It is still not that hard to go about it at least … Continue reading
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“Hon, where’s the butter?”—a cartoon on our fridge. A cartoon hung on our fridge for a couple of years. Its caption became a humorous private code, let’s call it The Code, between my wife and me. The Code is about assumptions, although, … Continue reading
[Washington, DC, 2005] I turn off the alarm. It is just after 6am on a cold, overcast Thursday. The idea for this expedition surfaced several days ago, while listening to the news on NPR. I have been imagining different scenarios … Continue reading
The Gray Man is master behind the government-issue desk, in the gray building, in the gray city, under gray skies brooding over a dun land. His eyes are small, sunk in oversized sockets. They stare, implacable, dark steel. The Gray Man’s eyes are a lifetime of empty, … Continue reading
Chit-chit-chet-chit-chet-chet swish-swish-swish-chit-chit-swish… intense feline scrutiny: a murder of crows squabbles over bugs beneath new snow, under old Ponderosa— stymied. … Continue reading
We are stretching our legs from our van ride back to the Thai border through seemingly endless, lush jungle and verdant rice paddies. Despite their tiredness, my eyes feel contented in a way they rarely do; even on a cloudy day, there … Continue reading
The evening looks promising. Transparent air, crystalline blue—emblematic of Flagstaff even in summer—has soothed my soul since childhood. “I can see for miles and miles…” spins in my head, unbidden, as I walk a short patch of worn asphalt, dull gray and pitted from winter’s … Continue reading
vap’rous backlit wrack flee the cold turbulent flow blear that baleful winter’s orb … Continue reading
You recognize as a youngster that science, and music, and literature and writing—creative wonders—draw you along comfortable invisible force lines.† But not opera. Overbearing, embarrassing falsetto vibrato is just wrong. As your joints grow creaky and more of your pate warms to the Sun, you … Continue reading
Primordial realm, ice and cold — we near the mists of Niflheim … Continue reading