This first ran in February 18, 2019, back when we thought colds came and went, big deal. Since then, covid has brought us to Jesus and back again, and people are having colds again, not exactly a big deal, not exactly not. And lest this post about our bodies’ resilience be taken as support for […]
Month: January 2026
Last year, for the first time, food consumption went down, reported the Financial Times, making 2025 “the first year on record where the volume of food consumed in America has decreased.” The weight loss drugs are taking their pound of flesh: not just from their own delighted customers, but from the food industry too. Meanwhile, this week […]
In May of 2025, I went to Mountainfilm in Telluride with my BFF Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer. We watched numerous amazing films, but there’s one that continues to haunt me, eight months later. Mr. Nobody Against Putin is a documentary filmed by Pavel (Pasha) Talankin. Here’s the synopsis published in the festival guide: Pasha is a […]
My mother died at the end of June 2024, a few months after my father. They lived the last 39 years of their lives in a tidy but full house, surrounded by books, photos, treasures, and memories of travels. It took a year and a half to transform the house from a cozy den of […]
This is the worst time of year for me, for all the reasons. The weather, for one. In January, the length of time until warmth settles seems unbearably long. The prolonged dark (and yes, I know the days are getting longer now, but still) feeds on energy, saps the will to do things. The gray […]
I’m writing a book about mountain lions and it’s down to weeks, days, pages flying, margins scratched and scribbled, when news comes of a 46-year-old woman killed by such a cat a couple hundred miles from where I live. She’d been hiking alone on New Year’s Day, forensics consistent with a mountain lion attack, asphyxiation […]
I feel like I’m always saying this, but: it was a weird start to the year. This year, I actually gave myself permission to *not* celebrate New Year’s, that is, I didn’t have to start a new program or a new calendar system, make a fresh start or be a new me. It was a […]
Update, 1/27/2026: When I wrote this post, January was lying low. It has now risen from the deep with monstrous noises. So, a cold snap, fair enough. And then my boiler (which I think of as a furnace, no clue how wrong I might be) started not heating very well then not at all so […]
