On Sticker Charts and Shoddy Science

Introduction I hate flossing. My mouth is small, my teeth crowded, the spaces between them difficult to reach. Twice a year, my dental hygienist entreats me to floss more frequently. Sometimes I assent, and mean it, and actually manage to make it work for a few months until I invariably get sick or injured or […]

Window: White Pine

It’s been a little while since I shared some bummer bird poetry. This one has the marvelous distinction of having been broadcast into a dark Scottish forest. My other poems are still a little jealous. Window: White Pine I. Chaos in the predawn dark— starlings scream II. Robbing the open pinecone, rewarded again and again—chickadee […]

Abortive Suckers: The Mystery of the Cypress Knees

I had never seen or heard of cypress knees before last year, when I visited Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati. It’s a beautiful place to walk around. The landscape is idyllic. Grass, grass, trees, trees, pond, swans, mausoleum, leaves, tombstone, tre—what the hell are those?

The Trifecta, Or, How to Haunt Yourself for Years to Come

In 2016 my editor assigned me an article about a then-recently identified genetic association between three medical conditions: postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), hypermobile Ehlers Danlos syndrome (hEDS), and mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS). As it so happens, I have all three of these. After minimal reflection, I decided to take a journalistic risk and […]

Free

Twenty-one years ago, Domino’s Pizza ran a fairly mundane promotion: customers who purchased a large one-topping pizza would also receive an order of cheesy bread, on the house. This event would not have even registered for me, or anyone I knew, had Domino’s not advertised it like this: 

Science Poem: Darwin’s Finches

This was first published October 4, 2021. It’s still the case. In regard to the wildness of birds towards man, there is no other way of accounting for it… many individuals… have been pursued and injured by man, but yet have not learned a salutary dread of him. Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species Darwin’s […]