Re: First Tuesday

Prompted by some of the electoral SF we mentioned, I reread “First Tuesday,” by Robert Reed. I remembered it wrong. It’s not about an election, it’s about the first national press conference.

Back to Normal

That is, I did not write a lot during the month of October. I can’t say I’m surprised. I know what works and what doesn’t. I know that I meet my writing goals when I write regularly, and since I didn’t write regularly, I’m not happy with how little I wrote. It would be too […]

Sunflowers keep on giving

I come to praise my sunflowers, not to pull them up and compost them. When they were blooming, the sunflowers offered pollen to the bees. When they were dying, seeds to the goldfinches. The plants have finished dying and dried up, but they’re not done.

The obvious question

Ordinarily, I don’t like to write about things everyone else is writing about, but today I can’t ignore the election. So, the question everyone’s asking: You voted, right?

Sunlight Savings Time

It’s not just the end of Daylight Savings Time that tells you winter is coming. It’s the layer of gray coming out in the sky, and layers of warmth coming in as you dress. But I do have just a little bit of sun saved up in this batch of random, sunny pictures from San […]

GTFH: Morality and Meaning

It’s about time I posted the third half of my musings about God: The Failed Hypothesis. Though the book makes a good case for the non-existence of the Abrahamic God, it could have been argued better. The book’s real strength lies in its discussion of evolution and cosmology. Where the book ventures into morality and […]

Becoming a ghost in the machine?

So today I got the sniffles when I read that Mars Phoenix is shutting down. Which is ridiculous. I mean, I got a lump in my throat over Chalcedony’s fate in “Tideline.” Then when I read “Edward Bear and the Very Long Walk” to my friends, I could hardly speak through the ending. Now this.

Still Harvesting

The collards on the hillside were looking a bit clumpy and wilted, and there was a dusting of frost here and there. Oh noes! Were the tomatoes too optimistic?

Alebrije

I’ve been suckered by the craziest thing. Have you ever been to an animal shelter and there’s that one cat (or dog) and you take one look and you know you’re in trouble. Well, I got that feeling when I saw Leroy. He’s an alebrije, a wood carving from Oaxaca. They’ve travelled from fever dreams […]

California goldenrod

While out in my old stomping ground, I also visited the Old Mission Dam. It was built in the early 19th century by the Indians and monks of Mission San Diego de Alcala to create a steady water supply from the San Diego river. Now it’s a quiet little park. There were ducks on the […]