Redux: Kill the Sprickets, Kill Them All

This first ran on March 14, 2016.  We may run it again another time, maybe even a few more times, maybe a hundred times. It can’t be said too often.   HELEN: I like bugs. I started a Ph.D. in ants (and quit, but still think ants are awesome). I have blogged in this space about […]

The Cicadas Come, on Little Hook Feet

  One evening this month I was coming back from the library. The pollen was at its worst, but I was sick of being indoors and thought I’d sit down on the grass in front of my building for a few minutes. I opened up one of my books, then felt guilty about choosing the […]

Dead Bugs Under My Desk, a Tribute

In honor of Helen Fields’s beloved series about the bugs she comes across in her daily life [see Fields, H. “Bugs on my Window,” LWON (June 24, 2015)], I’d like to present a semi-related post: Bugs (or Other Things) that my Dogs Probably Regurgitated As a writer and a “scientist” (I studied Conservation Biology, which […]

Meal, Worm

I eat meat. Most kinds. Beef, pork, chicken, bison, turkey.* Dark meat, white meat, legs, breasts. I’m not big on lamb—too much flavor, or perhaps too fragrant. Same goes for goat and venison. And I say no to veal, no matter how delicious it may be. Not that other farm animals aren’t treated poorly, but those […]

Bugs on My Window

Here’s a thing that reliably brings me delight: seeing a bug on a window. I don’t know how this love started. But it’s real. Here’s what happened when I was walking to the water cooler at work the other day. I saw a dark spot on the glass. A step or two more and wings […]

Humanity Under Attack: The Story of Morgellons

In 2001, Mary Leitao noticed something odd: a fiber poking out of an irritated patch of skin on her two-year-old son’s lip. In the weeks to come, more fibers emerged. Leitao examined them under the light of her RadioShack microscope, but she couldn’t figure out what they were. So she turned to the internet. There she […]