The feel of home

The small, rural San Joaquin Valley town where I grew up is not a place that garners much national press, at least as far as travel goes. Oh, there’s an article in Saveur here, or a few blurbs in AAA’s Via magazine there—even a one-off “36 Hours in Fresno” in The New York Times—but the Central Valley […]

Originally posted on The Other Courtney:
Irrational fears are something I spent a good portion of my time in therapy talking about. After a few months and several hundred dollars, my irrational fears no longer caused panic attacks and I was even able to laugh at them! Sometimes I catch myself slipping into my old…

Originally posted on Subject Obscura:
With one click of the mouse, I became a collector. I bought a second typewriter. The new: Olympia Model “S” I bought my first typewriter in October 2011. Goodwill opened a store in the area, which my partner and I promptly checked out. It turned out to be a well-planned…

Originally posted on Grist:
Monterey Bay Aquarium A baby red octopus is small enough to sleep on your fingernail. Which explains how one managed to sneak into the Monterey Bay Aquarium on a rock or sponge and stow away there for nearly a year, secretly snacking on the aquarium’s crabs, before being found. The sneaky…

Minnesota poetry walk

One brisk, golden day, my friend Shona and I set out to realize one of my longtime dreams: tracking down my favorite Everyday Poems for City Sidewalk in St. Paul, Minnesota. Ever since I first read about the public-arts project years ago in the Christian Science Monitor, I’ve wanted to stroll those sidewalks myself. Judging from […]