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 […]
Animals
If you ever have the opportunity, I highly recommend making a tiny friend. How tiny, you ask? I think it helps if your friend is big enough to be visible to you (though this isn’t strictly necessary) but small enough to be outside of the category of beings you would normally consider friend material. The […]
I need your help. I’m trying to find a phrase to describe an important phenomenon and maybe help people recognize it more easily. The phenomenon is this: When we fix a problem, we forget it. I don’t mean you and me in “we” — we, of course, remember. But pop culture forgets, and the mass […]
This is Diego. He is a Phidippus johnsoni jumping spider, and he lives on a jade plant in my front yard. There are several spiders of this species that can be found on the jade plant on any given day, but I know when it’s Diego I’ve spotted. Adult males of this species are around […]
One morning a few years ago, I woke to find I had lost most of the hearing in my left ear. In place of my usual acoustic environment was a high electronic ringing—eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee—as if a giant TV had been left on mute. Me being me, I assumed the issue would work itself out, but when […]
I have never fallen into quicksand, but like most people, I have been anxious about it at least several times in my life. You have too, right? It’s a real thing — you can be sucked down into the soft liquefied Earth unexpectedly, on hikes or on random walks. One of my friends fell into […]
In the last two years I’ve had a number of stressful experiences. And every time I’ve realized: I am really suffering, but this is a very normal experience. People do these things all the time. How did I not realize how amazingly tough all these people are? For example: my parents both died, about 7 […]
In a few weeks, the back fence by the elementary school with be a place where migrants gather themselves before they leave. The fence is popular because of its temperature and the protection it offers. The sun hits the fence from mid-morning until late afternoon in May, and so many years of sun has turned […]