Autumn always makes the woods feel emptyThough I know strictly speakingThis isn’t true Bears prowl orchardsChuff through oak grovesStuff themselves before a slumberThat grows shorter every yearDeer, too, are bolder now and dumberHaunting the edges of highwaysRunning to or from the rutEven many insects remainHidden in soil or bark Unnamed under leavesOr within the spongy […]
Month: November 2025
“I put my pants on just like the rest of you—one leg at a time. Except, once my pants are on, I make gold records.” Christopher Walken as The Bruce Dickinson, SNL “More Cowbell” sketch Margaret Atwood (Peggy in her personal life) resisted writing her memoirs because she thought her life was not interesting. She […]
Thanking people well is a skill that gets better with practice. So let’s practice.
“Conquering death would be humanity’s greatest achievement…This will become the primary objective for the human race. I think it’s inevitable.” -Bryan Johnson, speaking to The Information in 2024 about his “Don’t Die” philosophy. “I’m a huge fan of death. I’m a groupie for death. I think it’s the metronome of our existence. And without rhythm, […]
The International Museum of Surgical Science in Chicago holds many delights — an iron lung, a collection of old forceps, an X-ray shoe fitter. But none of them stuck with me quite like the glass case that held two fishbowls brimming with stones removed from people’s bodies. gallstones, kidney stones, and bladder stones. According to […]
This post first ran in 2023. One cold night a couple of weeks ago, my family and I bundled up to bike out to a park in one of Seattle’s northern suburbs. We have a routine for such trips after all these years. First we layer, and then we bedeck our bikes with lights: front […]
I never knew it needed explaining until someone asked me — why is singletrack so much more fun than wider trails like double track or dirt roads? We’re talking here about mountain biking and the allure of the singletrack trail — a narrow path, usually 18 to 24 inches wide, that meanders through a given terrain. […]
I used to work at the Science news office in the American Association for the Advancement of Science office in DC. As anyone who’s been there will tell you, there’s something special about the AAAS building — the dark polished rock exterior, the spiral staircase that, as you climb from floor to floor, takes you […]
