This post was originally published on March 21, 2018 I love a good mystery. And in a weird way, I kind of hate it when they are solved. It’s a little like candy. I have a vicious sweet tooth and I love going into a candy story and looking for something to buy. But when […]
Miscellaneous
Not every juicy morsel works in every recipe. As a writer, I often come across something meaty, think, HUH! and then drag the link to a rarely visited desktop folder because, you know, I’m not writing a piece about using a dildo in zero gravity. (This time.) (Note to self: Pitch story on space-appropriate sex […]
The last time I saw Dyson, maybe six months ago, I wondered whether he might be slowing down a little; on the other hand it was a Friday night at dinnertime, when all natural creatures slow down a little. This post first appeared October 7, 2013; it’s been updated here and there. I do seem […]
Summer is coming. In a few months the foothills surrounding my home will turn blonde, then grey. Streams will dwindle, then peter out. After fire season begins, everything will be covered in ash. That’s the reality of summer in the Sierra Nevada foothills these days. But right now it’s spring, and what a spring. The […]
This post original published on Nov. 20, 2017 I never meant for this to happen. When I moved to the Pacific Northwest from arid Colorado three years ago, I was one of those people who insisted on horizons. The town where I was born is a place where the foothills of the Rockies stand like […]
Sophia the Robot has been getting a lot of hackles up for raising the spectre of female humanoids that have more rights than female humans; for the creepy child version that’s supposed to teach little girls to love science, tech, engineering and mathematics; and for the generally weird way her handlers conflate robot rights and […]
Ten years ago this week I bought one of my most beloved articles of clothing: A gray hooded sweatshirt. A heavy one, mostly cotton, with “Alaska Ship Supply” on the front. In April 2009 I lived on board the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Healy, and, for the first few days of the month, it was […]
You’ve probably heard that California is in the middle of a gorgeous super bloom. News stories have been reporting both on the flowers and the flower-lovers who’ve flocked to them–causing traffic jams and, in some cases, stomping on the very blooms they came to see. (Some people even landed a helicopter in an Antelope Valley […]
