“I put my pants on just like the rest of you—one leg at a time. Except, once my pants are on, I make gold records.” Christopher Walken as The Bruce Dickinson, SNL “More Cowbell” sketch Margaret Atwood (Peggy in her personal life) resisted writing her memoirs because she thought her life was not interesting. She […]
Miscellaneous
This post first ran in 2023. One cold night a couple of weeks ago, my family and I bundled up to bike out to a park in one of Seattle’s northern suburbs. We have a routine for such trips after all these years. First we layer, and then we bedeck our bikes with lights: front […]
I used to work at the Science news office in the American Association for the Advancement of Science office in DC. As anyone who’s been there will tell you, there’s something special about the AAAS building — the dark polished rock exterior, the spiral staircase that, as you climb from floor to floor, takes you […]
I’ve never been a small-dog person. I get that they have a touch of cuteness to offer; they are, after all, tiny, furry things with big eyes, and some have silly faces, floppy ears, and goofy antics. But most that I’ve met are just perpetual barkers of the piercing sort, or teeth-bearing growlers, trying to […]
A conversation struck up at a writing workshop a few weeks ago between me and a computational biologist who studies the molecular biology and population genetics of the HIV virus and other virulent diseases including Ebola, Hepatitis, and Covid. She’s what you would call a veteran virus tracker, compiling and interpreting viral genetic sequences and […]
I remain mildly obsessed (a nice state to live in) with the mission patches published by the National Reconnaissance Office, which if you’re obsessed enough you can figure out what satellites the NRO just launched. Some of those satellites are, you know, secret. Like this one: it’s for recently-launched constellations (a ton of linked satellites) […]
I’m thinking about fresh scents again, which brings me back to this essay from a few years ago. For the record, I’m still wearing those perfumes! God damn it, advertising can be powerful. I mean, not that I would ever buy some stupid crap because I saw it advertised on TikTok, of all platforms…that place […]
I haven’t heard the foxes for a good year now. The woods are still there but the owners sold it to a buyer who promised to cut down only the middle of it, you know how buyers promise things. No trees have been cut down yet but a lot of people have been tramping through […]
