Guilty, We

Just past lunchtime one warm Tuesday last spring, as I walked through my neighborhood to the local Indian restaurant for samosas, I saw a big yard sale going on. I’ve long been a fan of a good rummage sale—that hunt for something tired and old to dust off and love anew. From a distance I […]

Redux: Another Kind of Coming Out Story

IF ONLY. But no, my prep drink didn’t make me feel like this. Back in September 2014 I wrote about my colonoscopy. Guess what, folks? I’m deep in the “prep” once again! (People with IBD have to do these things more often than most, unfortunately.) And that means I’m not feeling up for writing much, […]

This Frog

Mammals get all the love. I get it. Furry things, especially those that like to snuggle and smell like Fritos, make us feel warm inside. I myself hug goats on a farm in my spare time, and I’ve been known to butt in front of small children at the petting zoo. (Don’t judge me—that kid […]

Lugworms? Why, Certainly!

I warned you. Well, I warned someone…probably one of my fellow LWONers…that if nobody suggested a compelling way to fill this space for today, I’d write about lugworms. Time’s up! I’ve actually been thinking a lot about lugworms of late because of a recent diving experience in Ria Formosa, a sandy-bottom coastal lagoon in the […]

Redux: The Undead: A Holiday Rant

Is it almost the holidays again? Man, that was fast. I should probably come up with a new rant but hey, the old one still works. So, here’s my 2015 December complaint. I think it’s all still relevant…although The Walking Dead lost me when they killed off “Coral.” — It’s the holiday season so, of […]

Missing Pieces

My aunt is standing in front of the book shelf scrutinizing two rows of photos. It’s 1 a.m., and a little while ago I was dead asleep. But now here I am, awake, because here she is, standing in her pajamas with her hands pressed into her back, looking hard at faces in the frames. […]

Here I Am

I’m standing in my underwear and socks, gripping a rolled-up magazine that is shredded at the end from my violent battle with the flies. I’ve killed a dozen or more of them this Wednesday morning, but they just keep alighting as if there is some source—a pile of dog shit, a rotting corpse—hidden just there, […]

How Did I Not Know About the Hippo Bill?

Louisiana wetlands, as many places, are the inadvertent home to some ecosystem-altering invasive species, like fast-spreading aquatic plants called water hyacinth and giant salvinia. But hippos, no. There aren’t any hippos down there. Oh, what might have been. I’m not sure how I didn’t discover this earlier, considering how much I’ve been writing about invasive […]