the Nixionary

Natalia came over this morning for sticky buns and coffee. It’s my mom’s recipe—pour a stick of butter, a small bag of slivered almonds, a cup of brown sugar, and a teaspoon of cinammon over 20 frozen Rhoades dinner rolls, and leave them out overnight to rise—and we ate them with juicy, perfect sliced peaches [...]

I woke up and walked to the library downtown this morning, and when I arrived, a few things happened. A voice ratcheted off sky-rise walls, high-pitched but low-pitched at the same time, a rumbly screech echoing from somewhere further away than where the voice was actually coming from. I could hear the voice from a [...]

One bummer about Sitka this summer is that the town didn’t have enough money to keep the pool open. When I go to the gym, I look past the dark glass doors and into the hole that once had water and I wish every day that it was full.
I spent the last week in Anchorage, [...]

I’ve been in Sitka for three days and have woken twice to the optimism brought here by the sun. Yesterday, Natalie and her two-year-old twins and I hiked up above town, stopping to yell “poop!” at dog poop and to sling rocks into a trickling stream. At the end of our hike, we walked to [...]

I’ve been swimming a lot lately. Last week, though, Denver Public Schools let out for summer, which poses problems for us lap swimmers at La Familia. The lifeguards only block off three lanes, so the other half of the pool is filled with wriggling fleshy  kids.
What disturbs me is that some of them can’t swim, [...]