I’ve recently added a bit to my awkward beginning-of-interview spiel. I do the standard “here’s what my story is about, here’s why I wanted to talk to you” thing. But I also now usually say something like “oh, and if you hear any weird sounds, there are squirrels fighting in my back yard and my […]
Miscellaneous
Back in April, somebody at the community garden got ambitious. Weeds usually grow pretty profusely around the edges of the garden. But on one Thursday in April, when I walked by on my way to work, the weeds in the corner I pass every day had been completely turned over, in preparation for vegetables. I […]
It was everyone’s favorite week of the year here at LWON. Yay, Snark Week! We, the People of LWON, absolutely love to snark about nature’s weirdest, silliest, tallest, most evil, or most benign creatures, and we think we do it pretty well. Read for yourself if you haven’t already: Start with a guest post from Mitchell Leslie warning […]
I did not know this when I moved here, but Santa Barbara is the giraffe equivalent of a rabbit nest. In the last four years, five giraffes have been born at the small zoo here. One more is due this summer. At one point, I thought this was adorable. I rallied my children to […]
Guys, this isn’t easy for me—please know that I’m quite conflicted over what I’m about to write. It goes against a big part of who I am. But judge me as you will. After years of hiding behind a gentle loves-all-animals exterior, it’s time for me to expose this personal inner truth. I hate […]
Owls. Little downy Ewoks. Fat and fusiform with big round eyes, legs feathered like miniature pilot pants in a stiff wind, perhaps a pair of droopy tuft ears. What is more trustworthy than droopy tuft ears? They appear as if they will take your deepest secrets to the grave. Perhaps this is why owls decorate […]
June 20 – 24, 2016 I start researching for a story and you know how that goes, rabbit hole, branching rabbit hole, another branch, another, and pretty soon I’m so far into Ballykilcline and Texas I’m never coming home. After a day in which we, for the first time in history, forgot to post anything, […]
I love that graduation speeches are now posted on the internet. Listening to them, the good ones, I can’t help but feel a little bit of that helium of opportunity and promise that I once had, in early summer, when I was the one who got to walk across the stage. One of my favorite […]
