Attention & Executive Function: Beware

By: | June 30, 2025

I first wrote this July 2, 2018, a time of high stress nationally and personally – personally because I had to make life-changing decisions that I didn’t have the information to make. And that was even before the pandemic. The pandemic is now putatively, intermittently over but the executive function problem is only marginally better. Like, at the least stress my neurons, one by one, start fritzing out. Like, at 9:00 a.m. the contractor asks how high the hand-held shower should be and I say, “Coffee. I’ll tell you after coffee.” And it’s not like that’s even a hard decision, I mean, it’s obvious, right?

The latest of many, many social media posts by many, many people all saying the same thing:  “Ok, but for serious: is anyone else having trouble writing anything at all because everything is just Too Much right now?”  Or:  “I’ve tried to make coffee 4 times so far & failed. Writing is just Not Going To Happen.”

Google “attention,” “distraction,” and “psychology,” find a nice, scholarly, psychology article:  “That is, do we use up general attentional resources when we attempt to block out unwanted stimulation, thereby leaving less of a limited supply to fuel the main task . . .?”  I take that to mean, attention is a zero-sum game, so if you pay attention to – just blue-skying here – politics, do you have less “fuel” for the “main task”?  Yes.  Jeez.  Sometimes I worry about the questions psychologists ask.

How about the reverse question:  does the main task ever take up so much fuel, you can’t simultaneously blink and speak?  I know the answer and I’ve done the experiment, so I’ll make up the psychology.  I’ll define my “main task” as the directions issued by what psychologists call “executive function,” which is jargon for the brain boss, the project manager, the general contractor that coordinates the separate workers to get the job done.  No, nobody knows whether executive function really exists or where in the brain it might be. Anyway, here’s the experiment.

My executive function last week:  Editor hasn’t edited draft, other editor hasn’t replied to proposal.  HEY LET’S GO BUY A CAR!

Worker:  I never bought a car before.

Executive function:  How hard can it be? Get out there and gather information.

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Find the words about hiking

By: | June 27, 2025

Last weekend my brother and I held an open house style memorial for our mom, who died on June 30 of last year. I’ve been out of work for a few months (anybody need a science writer?) because of the new administration’s slash-and-burn approach to contracts, so I threw myself into making exhibits about my mom’s life and interests. Exhibits, because she loved museums, and because my parents never threw anything out. And because one of my best friends works in museums and was able to help me with questions like “help, how do I get this photo to stand up” and “help, how do I display this Tibetan dress” (answer: with expert museum skills, a borrowed mannequin, and so much time on YouTube).

More on that later maybe, but for now: please enjoy the word search from the activity book my friend and I put together for the exhibit. My mom also loved activity books, although she was more of a crossword person than a word search person – so don’t worry, you can also do the crossword my brother made. My parents met through hiking and continued to walk through their lives, from trekking around Nepal in their Peace Corps days to walking in the ravine near their house in the D.C. suburbs.

Word list for the word search:
Ramblers
YMCA
blister
path
hill
boot
Ridgeway
forest
socks
water bottle
tundra
hike
camp
walk
whistle
map
mountain
pack
trail
chautara
Gem Lake
trek

Word search created with thewordsearch.com and you can actually do a version online at that link, with a different grid every time

Not Every Mind’s Eye Can See

By: | June 25, 2025

When you hear the words “big green apple,” can you picture the fruit in your mind? Or is it represented some other way rather than as a vivid, or perhaps less vivid but still identifiable, visual image?

I think most of us assume we all have the same ability to “see” beyond our eyes, to generate a mental image of an object, a face, a moment in time. But recently, my dear friend Annika said when she thinks about a person, place, or thing, her mind’s eye sees nothing at all. In fact, more than five decades into her life she had no idea other people can truly “see” with their eyes closed, or beyond what’s in front of them with eyes open. She didn’t think “mind’s eye” was literal. She wasn’t happy about this news.

Annika’s dreams are visual experiences, but when she’s awake, she is, if I may, memory blind. At night, lying in the dark, she can’t envision her mom’s face or a sunflower or the words on her to-do list. (I suspect related: Her mind’s ear can’t “hear” a song being played or sung if it’s not actually audible.) “I know things, and I think about what I need to do and problems I have, but I can’t see anything,” she said. She can’t quite explain that “knowing,” but her organizational, artistic, and other abilities have not suffered in the least: The girl is a super computer when it comes to generating ideas and moving them from thought to reality. She happens to have a terrific eye for color and room design, in fact, and mixes and matches beautifully—which impresses me all the more now that I know she doesn’t get a preview of her choices.

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The Body is a Compass

By: | June 23, 2025

The picture is of a bit of soft mountain lion fur plucked off the barb of a sagging barbed wire fence. I’m on day 87 of 100 walking 200 square miles around my house in Colorado, mostly on public lands where wild animals hold sway. Today was a steep, wooded draw choked with boulders and their puzzles of green, crusty lichens. I’ve come down this draw a couple times since last winter when I followed fresh mountain lion tracks into a snowy slope of boulders as big as garbage trucks and the ringing in my head grew loud enough I decided to stop and not follow the cat any farther. I was coming into ambush terrain and though chances of an attack or any negative encounter are astronomically small, I heeded the bell. 

What I’ve learned in 87 days has come slowly and steadily. I started following animal trails a year ago for a book I’m working on in western Colorado almost to the Utah line, transecting this 200-square-mile area back and forth through gullies, canyons, mountains, and mesas. Pretty much every day has significantly upped the learning curve. Today’s recognition was that the map in my head is becoming a map in my body. I don’t mean this on any grand scale, but the draw I walked down I could feel coming for miles. I no longer refer to the map on my phone. I’m going by memory, which is how a mountain lion would perceive geography, knowing this draw like many animals do — the deer, elk, bobcats, bears — as a ladder connecting into a lower, deeper canyon where a crystalline creek babbles day and night. I wouldn’t say I’m no longer capable of being lost as I have been a few times so far, my heart beating faster among columns of ponderosa pines that have started to look all the same. I can still get lost, can still screw up, but my senses tingled with a fresh awareness of how the land lies.

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Rocket, Maybe?

By: | June 20, 2025

Rockets used to be fun. There was a time when, if we heard there was going to be a launch at Vandenberg Space Force Base—about 50 miles away—we’d head outside with binoculars and cheer when the rocket crossed the sky overhead.

Last year, there were 51 launches. During most of them, we were shaking our fists at the sky instead.

When I told one of my kids that I was going to write about rockets, he said I should call it, “Residents disturbed by extremely loud noises.” One night the sonic boom that hit at dinner sounded like the rocket had fallen on our roof. (I might have jumped out of my chair.) Another time, before dawn, the boom shook a window shade off our bedroom window. I’m not sure if I woke up before or after it crashed to the floor.

A passing rocket can feel like an earthquake, or like a semi is about to crash through the front door. (We’re feeling thankful that our extremely anxious old dog is no longer here to suffer through it.) People across the region have been starting to pay very close attention to the launch schedule, planning to be home with pets, or to avoid being surprised themselves.

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Farewell My Fun Friend: A Tribute to Donni Reddington

By: | June 18, 2025

From the moment I met her, I knew that Donni Reddington would be a Fun Friend. A Fun Friend is someone who brings the party and is always game. A fun friend sings out loud to the radio and breaks into dance without ever worrying about looking foolish. Donni was all of those things and more. She would hoot and holler while mountain biking and she had a special connection with her animals — horses and dogs and even a bearded dragon. 

Our friendship revolved around doing things — skate skiing and hiking and mountain biking and drinking beer. When we went adventuring, we generally just tried to have as much fun as our dogs. We also talked about work and marriage and aging parents and the weird shit that perimenopause was inflicting on our bodies. 

I only knew Donni a few years, and with our busy lives we didn’t get together as often as we wanted. But every time we did, it was a blast. Shortly after Christmas, she confided to me that she had just been diagnosed with cancer for the sixth (!!) time in something like 12 years. I hadn’t known her history. She seemed so full of health and vigor, it was hard to believe. 

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When Deer Attack

By: | June 13, 2025
Two deer in a suburban backyard.
Dangerous animals (truly) in a suburban backyard. Credit: Laura Helmuth

I witnessed a minor Drama in Real Life the other day while biking along the Western Maryland Rail Trail. Several deer were foraging by the side of the trail as I passed them, then I heard a bang and a scream (deer) and another scream (human). A full-grown deer had leapt into the trail and rammed another biker, throwing her off her bike. The biker had scrapes all over her arms and knees, and she was pretty shaken up. She’d just been attacked by a wild animal!  Fortunately, she didn’t hit her head (no helmet) or get kicked by the deer, but she was a mess.

My biking companion and I had some ancient first-aid kits and helped her get cleaned up with alcohol prep pads and some antibiotic cream. Our band-aids were too small and not very sticky anymore, so that didn’t help much. We gave her some water, made sure she hadn’t broken her wrist, and talked with her for a while until she was steady enough to get back on the bike. Again, a very minor Drama in Real Life, but I took away a few lessons that I’ll share in case they’re useful for you.

(For anyone who hasn’t read Reader’s Digest, Drama in Real Life was a regular column recounting just what the title says, and the dramas were typically life-or-death. I remember reading one when I was a kid about a Boy Scout who saw someone in a horrible accident that caused an abdominal wound, and their intestines were spilling out. The scout helped push their guts back in (in my distant memory of the story), and it was the most disturbing thing I’d ever read in all my 9 or so years.) 

Anyway, take-aways. Always wear a bike helmet! This trail is wide and smooth and level, with only a few back-road crossings and no car traffic. If it’s okay to skip the helmet anywhere, you’d think it’s there. Even if you don’t get rammed by a deer, there are so many ways to fall off a bike. Skulls are so thick but so fragile. 

Refresh your first-aid kit. I’m getting a bunch of new and bigger bandages to stick in my bike bag and backpacks, and more antibiotic and antiseptic stuff. Skin is so thin and so fragile. 

Deer are big and strong and fast and stupid, and that is a dangerous combination in a non-human (or human) animal. And they are deadly. Depending on how you do the estimates, 150 to 440 people in the United States die from interactions with deer each year, most involving car crashes. The most dangerous time is in the fall, during rutting season (stupid things are stupider when they’re looking to breed). Deer typically run in groups, so if you see one deer crossing a road, assume there are others behind it and watch out. They’re most active at dawn and dusk, so keep an eye on the side of the road and be prepared to stop. If you can’t stop in time, it may be safer to hit the deer than to swerve and potentially hit a tree or another car. 

The deer population in the East is probably higher than it’s ever been. In addition to causing dangerous accidents, deer sustain and distribute disease-vector ticks, and they destroy habitat for ground-nesting birds. I’d love to see a wolf- or cougar-reintroduction project that would bring back their predators, but for now the only thing that kills them is hunters and cars. Be careful out there? And please share your own nemesis-deer stories in the comments.