JOURNAL: HAPPY BIRTHDAY NORTH DAKOTA FROM OUTER SPACE + A NOTE ABOUT ASPHALT

Today is my dear North Dakota's 125th Anniversary of statehood. In honor, you must listen to our state National Guard singing the state hymn:

Click here to listen to the North Dakota State Hymn

I'd had a meteor shower on the dance floor by this point so you don't get the effect of my asteroid.

 

Many thanks are due to Elise for her clever whit and Janna for her sewing my arms in and all the other many, many things my lovely housemates do for me.

DEAR NORTH DAKOTA,
Even dressed as Outer Space for Halloween I felt a tether from the center of my heart to the folds of your dark earth and strange, beautiful streets. The Sheyenne River twists around my ankles, my knees are made of blizzards, mosquitos buzz in my brain, my eyes are full of Canada geese, and on each shoulder are little hairy bison with their melting brown eyes. Thank heavens for thee.

ASPHALT,
Yesterday I went to a yoga class for the first time in forever and after an arm collapsingly glorious session, while lying on my back with my eyes closed I realized it has been just over ten years since my cross country coach died. I thought of his gruff old voice, his patience, and the miles of asphalt I ran at his command. May those miles never leave me.


My heart is full.

where do we go?

(in which I switch from real science to my imagination--in other words, the beginning of my career as a science fiction writer)



But really trees take in carbon dioxide, which is one carbon atom bonded to two oxygen atoms. During photosynthesis, the energy from the sun separates the oxygen from the carbon and the tree releases the oxygen. So the tree gives us back twice what it gets. But perhaps by this point we've finished exhaling, have walked away from the tree and someone new is standing by and they're inhaling. Inhaling us.

I will go with simple, moveable, and science

i just want to look and listen forever

photo by Wendy Dunham via Cloud Appreciation Society Facebook page

The Carina Nebula via NASA

If you learn to play the dulcimer I'll marry you tomorrow.

do you believe in magic

hammerhead doto
DAVID LIITTSCHWAGER/National Geographic Stock



It's amazing the things that exist.

bark and barometrics

Drove across the Golden Gate Bridge.
And realized a childhood dream.
I went to a forest with really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really tall trees.

Redwoods.
Palo Colorado.

THE FUTURE WILL BRING
SOME OF LES PHOTOS.
probably.

They were like the trees in my dinosaur book. But I could not find any triceratops. I pretended to be a brontosaurus, Yanka was a giraffe.
They were like the trees I read about in elementary school science books, the books that spurred excitement and wonder. It was in third grade science that I set my sights on a trip to the redwoods.

Science
is
amazing.

When I was nine my mom and I found instructions on how to make a barometer. With just the simple bits we had around the house we put together a homemade atmospheric pressure telling gadget. That was the coolest thing ever.



Drove back over the Golden Gate Bridge.