2026: February 22: Reading and Writing

I have not taken an English literature class since high school (I haven't taken a science class since high school either, but that's a sad story for another day). You know I read a lot, but I've never taken much time to be deliberately conscious of how something is written. Sure, I sense clunkiness, or an author trying too hard, and I've had my share of frustration parsing the nineteenth-century sentence. Reading for the beauty of the language doesn't come naturally to me and sometimes I've felt guilty for reading too fast, for not appreciating the words themselves. As if I'm disrespecting the author.

Now, though, I'm taking these creative writing classes, and part of learning to do anything involves taking that thing apart and seeing how it was put together. I am enjoying it so much, slowing down, looking at the rhythm of the words and the sentences and asking how they change or support the meaning. Dialog, time markers, imagery, character arcs etc. It's all so much fun to think about, and to talk about with other people. Seriously, I'd forgotten what it is like to have someone else point to something and have it break open my thinking just a little bit more. 

Cats don't read or write. Weird. 

Then I get to go and try things out, see if I like them, if they work for me, and then I get to kind of forget about them again while I just simply write. 

(Oh, and perhaps this should be another whole post, but I want to write like Alysa Liu skates. I'm minorly obsessed with her right now). 

Hey, trying something out here: Movie of the Month: If you get a chance to see Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie, you absolutely should. The only think I knew going in was that it was a comedy, and that might be the best way to experience it. Although I already know I want to see it again.  

2026: February 14: Photos

At various times in my life I've actively tried to become a better photographer. Results were mixed. I've got some nice shapshots, but nothing you'd want to call art. Currently the only functioning camera I own is my phone, and I've toyed with buying a new digital SLR but honestly, they're just too complicated. I loved my first ever camera because after I put the film in and set the ISO, I was able to adjust f-stop, aperture, and focus all with one hand, and without taking my eye from the viewfinder. Now cameras have 10 million buttons and knobs and multi-level menus and I just want to take a photo, dammit, not sift through an infinity of options. I'm sure I could get over this if I tried, it's just so easy to carry my phone around and use it as a notebook and leave it at that. 

Again, writing is generative. I did not open my computer today intending to write any of that. I was either going to add an installment to the "damn, it's been a cold winter" series, or share some photos of my father, since he died 37 years ago this week and I like the idea of memorializing a prime number anniversary. 

So, hey, I'll do both: 

Damn, It's Been A Cold Winter: 

Actually, though, today went a couple of degrees above freezing and I only wore one layer of pants on my run this morning! 

A scene from my Tuesday morning walk. That's the Chenango River on the right, all covered in ice and snow. 

Thirty Seven Years Is a Long Time. 

I have a lot of photos of Bill. Here is one. (Kodachrome). 

Bill and Ben the Dog at a surprise birthday picnic for Bill at Canoe Beach which is a little beach at the far end of Purakanui, between Dunedin and Waitati. We used to go there a lot. 

Why I Started Thinking About My Exploits in Photography

When I was at university I joined the photography club and used their dark room to develop and print my arty black and white film and a while back I scanned all those negatives and today I found this one while I was looking for Bill photos. Scanning color negatives is a little more complex, but I have been toying with sifting through my collection. Swedish Photography Cleaning! 

Ben the Dog in his spot by the front window of the Brownville Crescent house. He was a very good boy and shows up in lots of photos. 

2026: Saturday February 7: Cold Ramblings

Today winter won. I am not going outside. I will do jumping jacks in the kitchen or run up and down the stairs. I am fine with my decision, because look at this:

8 am. Wind chills making it "feel like" -23. In C, that's -31. 

Sometime when I bundle up for my walk I tell Michael "I may be sometime." And then since he went to school in the US and did not do a project on Scott's Antarctic expedition when he was 9 years old, I have to explain Captain Oates' last words as he left the tent in the middle of a blizzard, sacrificing himself in an attempt to save the rest of the team. 

Yesterday I incorporated my father's last words into a piece of fiction. Apparently they were "help me," and they haunted me for years and I'd snort whenever people talked about dignity in dying. Until I was talking to my aunt, who was in the room that night, and she told me he was trying to put his socks on and I've never laughed so hard at death as I did when she explained. Still not dignified, but certainly less horrific.

Change of subject: update on my congressperson, the very centrist Democrat. He wrote me a nice letter explaining that ice is terrible, he voted not to fund them, and he's signing on to impeach Noem. So that's a step in the right direction. Honestly, your congressional representative is often your most reliable conduit to influencing national policy. 

And a just-for-fun photo, because life is still fun, here I am trying to fit both myself and a moa skeleton into a selfie at Yales' Peabody Museum. 

Moas are/were very cool and it is sad they are extinct but I roll my eyes every time I see a reference to attempts to de-extinct them because Have We Learned Nothing, People? 

2026: February 1: New Haven

In which we learn how to pronounce New Haven correctly, see two plays, one museum, one library, get a back-stage tour, buy some Yale merchandise, meet Ella's roommates and friends, and generally have a good time.

Ella explains to Michael how the rigging system works.

Now I'm tired from driving home and I still have to thaw the soup for dinner and do some work for my writing class. So, long story short, Ella is awesome and we'll probably go back in the spring when it is warmer. 

2026: January 25: Talking About The Weather

There are two things I've been talking about the last few days and one of them is the weather. A massive storm is currently dumping snow on us and it's likely we'll get between one and two feet by tomorrow. And it has been cold. So cold. The coldest winter in years. We dropped below freezing back in early November and have only come up for air a few times since. One just has to yield to it, winter is a state given to us by the nature of the earth and there is no need to fight it. It does take forever, though, getting dressed to go for a walk. Merino blend long underwear. Multiple socks that have to be put on in the right order, tops of varying neck lines, lined hat with earflaps, hoodie up over the hat. Etc. Yesterday morning started off at 0F / -18 C but it was sunny and calm, so I got out there and enjoyed myself. 

It's the wind and the ice that will kill you. 

This is what I looked like on Friday after half an hour standing in a brutal windchill on the side of the road holding an anti-ice sign. I had to wait until I got back into the car to take a photo because it was too cold to unzip my coat and get my phone out when I was outside. That's Michael's University of Minnesota hat that I borrowed for the occasion. He bought it when we were dropping Ella off in Minneapolis for college. Solidarity.

Ha! You thought I might go a week without mentioning the only other thing I can really think about right now? Fat chance. I don't have a lot of smart things to say, since I'm not an analyst, I'm not an expert. But I am hearing from my exhausted and devastated Minnesota friends whose lives have been turned upside down trying to help their neighbors. So fuck ice, fuck every liar who is covering for them, and I hope we get through this. 

Oooh, the first slow plow of the day just went by, so I might layer up and go out for the first shovel session of the day. 

2026: January 18: I hate making phone calls

What a goddamn week. I'm so stressed, I even called my congress person. He's got a weird district that includes both Ithaca and Binghamton, but which also cuts right down to the Hudson River through rural backcountry, and he focuses a lot on farmers. And you know what farmers around here rely on? Migrant labor. Yup So why the heck isn't Josh Riley saying anything about their vulnerability to illegal attack and detention? It's all safe stuff everyone can agree on, like utility bills and tractor safety. God forbid a moderate Democrat should stand up to the violent racists. So I called his office and said a few things very nicely about how I'd like him to do something in the next budget round about the ridiculous and massive DHS budget hike last year, because you have to give your reps something concrete to do. (Ok, to be fair to Riley, he has spoken out about a few of T@#$%'s shenanigans, but damn it, he could be louder).

Ida is judging us all. And that is the head of Ella's 16th birthday "ironic unicorn" pinata that we're not allowed to toss just yet. It is also judging us. 

I was both relieved and disappointed to get an answering machine. Relieved because I hate making phone calls. I had to totally psych myself up and I even wrote myself a little script and everything. Disappointed because it feels like leaving a message is weak. Really, everything seems so weak. But I'll call again next week because I guess it is the very least I can do. 

I started my next class for my writing course this week and as I prepared to join a zoom with people from all over the country, I pondered what to wear. So, yeah, why not this sweatshirt from when Ella was in college in Minneapolis that she gave to me? 

I did my hair better than this for the actual zoom but forgot to get a pic of that. And lopsided is the new normal for my face now, apparently.

2026: January 10: Chaos and Calm

What a weird week it has been. It has ranged from Jane Austen audiobooks on the way to the movies, to a funeral, to watching my favorite city under violent occupation by federal forces. 

One day soon I'll write about movies, because we go a lot, and I'm thinking I might want to start thinking and talking about them the way I do about books. We've been listening to Mansfield Park on our drives back and forth from Cinemapolis in Ithaca, and am here to tell you it isn't her best work. 

An old friend from grad school died. I hadn't seen him in years, he was seventy three and not in great health. I went to the visiting hours, ran into other old grad school friends in the parking lot, stood in front of his open casket with them and gossiped about former professors, then hugged his ex-wife a whole lot. Time! Marches on! etc. 

Minneapolis is under attack. Violent, aggressive, out-of-control occupation by under-trained and over-armed fascists. My friends are telling me stories, and the murder of Renee Good is only a small part of the hell being rained down on the people of the city without regard for constitutionality or consequences. The only bright spot it that they're getting organized and pushing back. I don't know what is going to happen or how dark it is going to get. 

Yet somehow I'm still plodding forward into the year in a moderately productive and moderately healthy way. I almost feel guilty, although I know that won't help. 

Appearances to the contrary, we're actually cutting down on our drinking