These are just some of the many ways to fail at a long-term game even as you succeed in the short-term ones that make it up. It turns out this is a common mistake that arises because we live in a non-ergodic world. It’s a real problem in our decision making. You might not have […]
I wrote this post a few years ago after being off the grid for a week and coming back to a bunch of messages about an emergency. I’m about to head out again, and I do always have that worry–what if something happens when I’m gone, and I’m not here to help? But reading this […]
Over the last few months, I’ve grown convinced that the single most effective tool for the conversion of new birders is the board game Wingspan. This winter some friends and I became obsessed with Elizabeth Hargrave’s invention, a gorgeously designed and illustrated engine-building game that basically requires its players to assemble an aviary of western […]
Since I wrote this, October 11, 2017, I’ve had time to thoroughly understand that yes, I’m definitely grandmother age; and yes, I’m used to it; and what I’m used to is the idea that while I’m increasingly someone who needs to be protected, I’m also increasingly a protector. Not that I go around protecting things […]
On May 10, I leave my house in northern Washington state just after dawn. I drive alone along a braided river, over sagebrush plateaus, and through fields of golden flowers. Then one plane across the Cascades, and another across the Rockies, to finally land in my my childhood home in Colorado. I’ve come to stand […]
The other day I drove to the grocery store, opened the trunk to get out my shopping bags, and this cherry fell out. At my boyfriend’s house, a couple of beautiful ornamental cherries overhang the parking area. And this little fruit availed itself of my 2012 Prius as a dispersal method. I don’t think this […]
Here’s a time capsule. I wrote this in 2011, before flying – along with everything else – felt like it was getting more dangerous. One thing I definitely don’t think we will ever experience again is the joy of flying on a mostly empty plane. It’s not every day that a flight is delayed because […]
God, I love dogs. That’s why recently I started volunteering at a facility where dogs from the very worst conditions around the world are brought for rehab and prep for adoption. It’s run by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), and it’s in a warehouse at a Maryland address not widely known, as […]
I first met Our Jenny in 2010 (I think?), when I walked into her office at National Geographic to buy a lizard. It’s a cute story; we’ll tell it some other time. For now, all you need to know is that the reptile sale turned into a friendship, and then a collaboration, as I helped […]
This is a picture of my mother sheltering from an Arctic wind from when this post first published in 2015. She’s nearing 80 now and I just connected with her last night in southern Utah where she’s joining me for a week on the San Juan River. She teeters more than she used to, not […]
