Geography

Entries from Tucson

Photos · 13 Jun 2020 · Tucson

What a week. What a day. I lost my cool with a store manager today who said he couldn’t require his employees to keep their masks on. “What if they also took their shoes off, hung them from their ears, and walked around the store barefoot? Would you ignore that also?” I wanted to say but just walked out instead as the mouth breathing MAGAs in line looked at me like I was being hysterical – Guess what, I was! – and I felt bad for losing my cool with someone who was probably doing his best just showing up when even grocery shopping has become a partisan theater of sneers. Memo to all who continue to support or remain silent about our impeached president and his bigoted politics of division and death: It’s working.

Honest Stuff I Make Up · 27 May 2020 · Tucson

Quarantine Quick Bread

Loaf of banana bread cooling atop the oven — On Wednesday, excerpts from an upcoming collection of oral histories, Don’t Get Me Started on Starter, were leaked revealing he was the last person in quarantine to make banana bread.

Notes · 26 May 2020 · Tucson

I am grateful for my parents’ examples

I am grateful for my parents' examples – good and bad – and the lessons I continue to learn from them.

Honest Stuff I Make Up · 26 May 2020 · Tucson

Rio

I said oh, you’ll know him when you see one of his prints. His stuff was everywhere in the eighties. I image searched him then went to his Wikipedia page. Standing at the sink, still in our pajamas and the pairs of magenta and powder blue latex gloves we wear while washing dishes together, we learned the artist died of a heart attack while doing aerobics in 1984, the same year I took up the sport.

Photos · 17 May 2020 · Tucson

Okay smarty, go to a party

A dry magenta poppy and pod with a blurry pod entering stage left

A dry magenta poppy and pod with three blurry pods entering bottom right

Some fun with what's left of this year's poppies

Photos · 10 May 2020 · Tucson

COVID-1984

COVID-19 street poetry written on masking tape — Pandemic poetry written on masking tape and attached to the electrical poles along Mountain Avenue

Photos · 23 Apr 2020 · Tucson

Normalcy and doting on prickly pear blossoms

Prickly pear pads with yellow blossoms — April in Tucson is the most agreeable time of year to be here. Doting on prickly pear blossoms is something we’d normally be doing now, which is perhaps why this year with all that’s going on we’re especially losing our shit over them.

Notes · 23 Apr 2020 · Tucson

The Spanish Word for Countertop

Tablespoon measure on countertop — How effortlessly we forget the Spanish word for countertop.

Notes · 19 Apr 2020 · Tucson

Wood Pile Geometry

Today makes my back hurt just thinking about it. We have started building our raised garden beds. I was feeling pretty good about the weekend-long effort, then Hiram said something about geometry and the square footage we’ll have for plants when we’re finished being less than I thought. How can four smaller beds using all of the same pile of the wood we had be less than our original plans for two bigger beds not using everything? The answer is: Whatever. I’m still stoked.