The surgery is tomorrow morning! I’ve been running through my checklists to make sure I get everything done. I’d set aside some time today to attend to what seemed like a huge amount of prep work—like preparing ready-to-go meals for the week ahead, and laundering the bed linens and towels—and then found that I…
With major surgery coming up next week, I’m taking a stab here at documenting my experience in case it helps someone else. Anxiety and excitement share the same physical characteristics: increased heart rate, butterflies in the stomach, singular mental focus, and so on. Years ago, I was on the eve of a skydiving adventure with…
If you subscribe to my newsletter or follow me on social media, you already know that we recently adopted a dog. Everyone, please meet Jax—aka, the Manatee of Dogs, because he is a sweet-tempered, gentle giant. Our current guess is that Jax is a Great Dane/Black lab mix—a Labradane (or a Danelab, if you want…
By now, you’ve probably been inundated by stories about recent advances in artificial intelligence—from art generation to text creation—and how it’s either the end of all things or the salvation of humanity. I’ve seen some hopeful promise as well as legitimate causes for concern, and for the latter I recommend the most recent episode of…
This week, my latest piece for Sky & Telescope was posted. The topic is burnout, seen through a stargazing lens. Honestly, I feel both relieved and kind of anxious that it’s out there now. I’d struggled with the topic for a solid month before I turned in my draft—not because I didn’t know what to…
I had an experience yesterday that I’m still stewing over, and while the occurrence itself was problematic, there are some larger issues at work, too. What better way to process than through a blog post, I guess? Burnout is a very real thing, and I’ve apparently been in varying states of autistic burnout for long…
There haven’t been too many blog posts from me this year—only three, if the Scrivener project in which I keep all these entries is to be believed. I was only somewhat more active in this space the year prior. Many things kept me from blogging more, including health, stress, grief, anxiety, and a bunch of…
