To the Moon, With Tardigrades and Knowledge

This post (published in May 2018) seemed worth resurfacing after the astonishing recent news that the Arch Mission Foundation’s Lunar Library had flown to our celestial neighbor with Earth life aboard. For the record, I love the Lunar Library concept (cf., below). But I think the tardigrades were a bad idea. After several thousand years […]

Savor All the Pieces of Moment

I recently bought a camera that prints pictures immediately upon exposing them. Remember those? It’s pretty fun, and it’s nice if, like me, you take a lot of pictures and then save them in your iCloud and forget to look at them. Or at least forget until your phone sends you an automated “memory,” and […]

How To Win Friends And Influence People, According to My Dog

It’s my dog’s birthday today, so re-sharing this post from the winter felt appropriate. Also I am on deadline. Last fall, when I was deeply in need of a warm, distracting project, I got a puppy. She is very cute, extremely soft, and really annoying. She enjoys chewing everything, but she especially loves my shoelaces […]

Oh, To Follow the Road That Leads Away From Everything

Note: This post originally ran Dec. 7, 2018, and is being resurrected for Atacama Week. Please consume extra water and enjoy. Driving in a foreign country is a good way to turn your head inside out. It shakes the cobwebs and forces you to rearrange the heavy furniture of your mind. You need to make […]

Ruining the World By Seeing It

Before my sophomore year of high school, I went to Sea Camp, a week-long summer program in La Jolla, Calif., for (privileged) kids like me who were interested in marine biology. We learned about fish biology during the day. At night, we roasted marshmallows under the stars before falling asleep in our bunks. I was […]

The Marshes of America’s Space Program

Last week, on my visit to the Moon rocks, I walked across a bridge topping a marsh. To my right were tall grasses emerging from a long, thin body of water, bending toward the east. To my left was a space shuttle perched on a 747. I heard waterfowl piping and chirping, but I couldn’t […]

OK Google, Search: My Life

Google saved my life so many times last month, as I trudged through Europe alone. Without Maps, I would never have made it to my meetings, train connections, flights, meals, or anything. Google sent alerts to remind me when to leave; it translated my questions, so I could bleat them in a pathetic form of […]