other

Today was like being let out of jail. The sun was shining. There was no wind. The sun, did I mention? It was shining. It was warm outside — 40s up into the 50s. I cleaned up the yard (dog poop patrol), cut some hollyhock stalks and put them over where I want hollyhocks...
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This is the first winter I’ve had a clothesline and I find I use it fairly often. If it’s sunny, and above freezing, I’ve been hanging things outside. Today is very windy, which is a bit of a challenge, but there they are, some clothes, getting dry without using my dryer. It’s a small...
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There’s no shortage of praise going around for Updike’s work in the wake of his death, and I’ve been hesitant to jump in because well, there’s that prohibition against speaking ill of the dead. For all I know, in his personal life he could have been an exemplar of many fine qualities — I...
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Last night was one of those bad white nights where you wake at two and worry. The kind of night where you’re haunted by worries that are just practical enough to be real, and which yet, you know you can do nothing about at two in the morning. Or three in the morning. Or...
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Mornings in Montana lately have featured subzero temperatures and, as is the case this morning, 30-50mph gusts blowing right up against my kitchen windows (that sun porch I want is seeming less like an indulgence and more like an investment in insulation on mornings like this). At any rate, it’s been deepest winter here....
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I sometimes go on jags where I’ll find a new writer and read three or four books in a row, and Sebastian Barry has been one of those writers for me this winter. Irish literature was my undergraduate specialization — I went to Dublin for a semester my senior year to study Joyce (and...
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Sorry all of you who are trapped in the cold, but it’s 53 degrees in my backyard and I’m writing this blog post from the patio furniture, in the sun. And I’m just beside myself with happiness about tomorrow’s inauguration. A new day dawning. Oh happy happy day.
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I’m on a very old version of WordPress, mostly because I haven’t had the time to upgrade, and while it used to email me when there were comments, so I could moderate or respond right away, it seems to have stopped doing that. Hmm. Don’t know what that’s about. At any rate, it was...
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My lovely friends Chris and Debi Lorenc have gone off on an adventure worth reading about. Chris and I met in a workshop during the very first year of the Art of the Wild workshop at Squaw Valley. I was workshopping the very first chapter of Place Last Seen, and Chris was working on...
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It’s a recessionary January, and I came into this new year wondering how on earth my credit card balances has mushroomed like they have? With the state of the economy being what it is, and layoffs happening right and left, I find myself in a bad position. A position that all this LivingSmall stuff...
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