Full Circle
A lot has changed since I was here in the Midwest.
Love You Much, Grandpa from the Farm
He extended his index and the remaining three-quarters of his middle finger: “that’s two—not one and a half!”
Hurry Up and Wait
He paused contemplatively before bellowing, with evident relish, “I’m TOO LOUD!”
Finally Ph(inishe)D
I’d done a virtual run through of the presentation (so called, I like to think, because it’s the part of the process that most feels like being run through with a sword)
Tread Less Lightly
We know our lives here are fleeting, but it’s the sort of knowledge we don’t care to call up that often—as if mortality were a somewhat shameful secret.
On the Road with a Partner, a Puppy, and a Pending Deadline
We passed the turnoff for Eden’s class—the furthest she’d ever been in a car—shortly after sunrise and kept on going.
Eden at Three Months
She chases her tail methodically, in a neat, measured, business-like circle, like a tiny site inspector
Merry Christmas from Florida
The fronds always put me more in mind of Easter.
Welcome to Eden
She has yet to shred her first roll of toilet paper, or textbook, or slipper.
On This Day in 1921
She bargained her services as a biology editor in exchange for a small lab and single technician and doggedly continued her science.
“Bye-bye Puppy Girl”
There were pandemic quarantines; were it up to her, they would have never ended.
There and Back Again—A Review
I, too, am a member of the convenience cult.
Shades of Grey: A Long Overdue Review
If I had to describe it in a single word, I’d probably choose quirky, but it is, of course, so much more.
Eccentric Encounters in Miami
“Do you know Father Gabriel?” she asked me.
Goodbye Lubbock
You’ve been a pleasant surprise.
Fond Fireside Flashbacks
“That’ll burn for hours—we’ll be here all night!” someone would observe. But no one ever minded.
Country Mouse, City Mouse
Even so, I survived—more than can be said for the city mice in our apartment
Repenting in Dust and Ashes
I felt the grit on my teeth and imagined it in my lungs.
What’s With All the Pants Posts?
“Grand Canyon? More like Bland Canyon.”
Christmas is Here
It puts me in mind of Christmas in Canada: joy in enormous measure, coupled with the inescapable aches of cold
Who Do You Think You Are?
I am not the same as I was at four years old, but I am the same person. Right?
Bicycle Commuting (in Lubbock, Texas)
Cyclists know a city very differently than motorists do—as ants know a backyard very differently than squirrels do.
English Eccentricities
I guess I’ve reached the point of news media consumption at which I expect the phrase “juicy secrets of stars” to concern some vapid, nosy meddling in some stranger’s affairs—my science communication background and research focus notwithstanding.
Invisible in an Intersection
I don’t know whether the driver even saw me after the fact, or if he ever registered the uncouth bird I flashed at him.
“Follow Instructions”
We are notoriously poor followers of instructions. Even simple ones. Even conspicuously beneficial ones.
The Center is Not Here
We can be lamentably blind to the blood on our hands
Inches in Ireland
We stood at the summit of the 8,424-inch-tall Cliffs of Moher for an interminable stretch, taking in the majesty of lush green pasture giving sudden way to jagged, vertical, bird-nest-spotted stone yielding in turn to frothing, unabating ocean.
An Entrance to the Words
My mind has been absorbed with the things of the screen, always in the presence of, well, what feels like everything.
Thinking About Thinking About Thinking
Our thoughts need company as desperately as we do.
Dendritic Remembrance
Each of those shorn poplars may well have been genetically identical, but those of us in the serious tree-climbing business knew that didn’t mean squat.
