Category: Uncategorized

We had barely left, making our way to Denver International Airport, leaving Colorado, when Sally pointed to the left and said, “That’s Erie,” the town where The Dog Stars takes place. She said, “They have airstrips instead of driveways.” Then we had a debate—thanks to Amy, I mean Dr. Sekhar—about how they go to the … Continue reading On post-apocalyptic Colorado and survival odds (for the Allens)

Update for 2022: In 2014, I wrote an article for Angie's List Magazine about prefabricated homes. In putting together this blog, I wanted to pass on some history that didn't make the final cut. However, at this time, eight years after doing the research, I don't really consider myself an expert on this topic, and … Continue reading Why mass-produced National Homes are interesting (to me)

Fifteen hundred people buried alive, & I stood over their bodies through five feet of displaced earth, judging— no, measuring—by how high soil crept up still standing buildings, hiding doorknobs on el hospitalito. I can’t say the things they needed to live were what killed them, only their method of acquiring; I heard about the … Continue reading Santiago Atitlàn, Guatemala, 2005

It all started at the very, very, absolute end of everything. There was no crimson red sky announcing the apocalypse. It was quite sunny, although slightly smoky. Birds chirped, choked on the smog, repeated. Then came the thunder, trumpets, and angels descending. Almost the whole world was in awe. In a far off desert, anti-modern … Continue reading DEUS EX MACHINA

Peering from the lighthouse deck, the ocean stretches like a sheet for a bed with edges _____________that no toes _____________can overhang— green grass & crags trap thin layers of sand between the sharp sloping shore and sea; millennia of subduction pinstriped the metamorphic rock fashionable, igneous collisions, _____________& layered granite _____________slabs—unsliced kitchen counters— with the … Continue reading Pemaquid Point, Maine, 2013

One week ago, I asked Stephanie Snay to marry me. We went to the IMA to see the Neo-Impressionist Portrait exhibit, and when we left, I said we should go for a walk in the 100 Acres. The weather was changing from the previous week's pleasant October-in-July back into the muggy, blinding Indiana summers that … Continue reading How we got engaged