The Ice Storm

“It’s like we’re high,” said my friend Eileen, and I laughed because she was right. We had headed out for a walk in my neighborhood but it was impossible for us to move forward, everything was wrapped in a sparkling clear layer of glassy ice and we needed to look all of it. Twice. Up …


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Forgotten But Not Gone

My Dad doesn’t really know who I am any more. I think he’s aware that he’s got a daughter out in the world, and that her name is my name, and she has certain qualities that I have, but he doesn’t associate those things with my physical self. Dad, who was a mathematician and a …


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The Endless Plain

Flatland. From above it’s a table top with dark spills where the water has settled and then, a green splash not exactly in the middle. It’s dust colored, pale gray brown dust, a change from the reddish soil from the higher, greener altitude of the rim. In the crater it’s grassy and there are zebras …


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This is Not About a Taxi Driver

It is not possible to get from where I was to where I wanted to be without a driver of some kind. With that in mind, I ditched Jeremy the taxi driver. I’m not so naive that I expect to get the best possible price – my bargaining skills are rather poor, I know that. …


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The Name Casts a Spell

Here’s an audio version of this post if you’d like to hear me read it.  It includes a track, Savane, by Yukikaze from the album Africa. Thanks, Yukikaze, for using Creative Commons. It’s taken me about eight weeks to prepare for my trip to East Africa. I had to send my passport off for a …


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Falling Up

The globe at my best pal’s place is mounted to have the north pole up top and the south at the bottom. You can flip it the other way round, but it doesn’t sit like that on its own. North, for some reason, is up, it’s up on the 1950’s map I have hanging in …


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