Birding – PUBLISHED, Finally

We, the People of LWON, write whatever the f*** we want. But on days when we just can’t, we rerun an old post. Today, I just can’t. And yet rerunning old posts is against my personal religion. So today I am excavating the blog post that I partially wrote in the summer of 2021 and […]

Free the Tree

One Sunday in November, my boyfriend and I were arriving back at his house at noon or so, after a visit to the market for a baguette and bacon. As I waited for him to unlock his door, I looked at the pretty maple tree next to me. It had Christmas lights wrapped around its […]

How to Visit a Natural History Museum

I go to a lot of natural history museums. Something about all those pretty rocks and dead animals, and the chance that I might see something I’ve never seen before or learn something new—I can’t resist it. In the last three years, I’ve been to at least 15 natural history museums on two continents. Here’s […]

The Best Bugs

Cicadas are the best bugs. The 17-year cicadas emerged here in the D.C. area two years ago and I haven’t gotten over it yet. Everyone knows this, and that’s why Our Kate texted me on Monday with a link to a new paper in the journal Science about the effects of cicadas on the food […]

Drama at the beach

I’m at the beach (the beach!) and it’s September, and there was a storm recently, so things have been quite chilly and windy and sploshy. Monday morning, I went out for a walk before starting my day of remote work, and I saw this horseshoe crab, and it was moving. I am told by the […]

Lookit This Tree

About seven months ago, I acquired a boyfriend. I mention this for two reasons: (1) to brag that an exceptionally good-looking, kind, and intelligent man wants to hang out with me and (2) because I just recently noticed something about this tree in his front yard. I’ve been going out of the front door there […]

Snapshot: Mulberries, Sidewalk

It was a Wednesday morning, the last day in May. I’d been at the emergency room until the wee hours with a loved one and I needed to be asleep, but my brain had other plans. Me: how about sleep? Brain: Alternative proposal: how about obsessing over your problems, such as this loved one who […]

Listening for the Birds

Helen, currently hors de combat but returning soon to battle, has been listening for birds forever and ever since she wrote this, October 2, 2019. For all I know, she can now tell sparrows apart, a magisterial accomplishment. -Ed. I’ve always been bad at bird songs. My neighbor corrected me on this on Sunday, as […]