All We Need is Music, Music, Music

The music department at Western Not State Not College is shouldering the brunt of proposed cuts to the liberal arts curriculum, although there are efforts to make sure this doesn’t happen without a fight. Like the fight song for the college, I mean university, which last I knew still got played (in non-covid years) by […]

The Seeds of Destruction

Today it’s plants that have me depressed. Inside, mostly, but my spirits are crushed as inexorably as Lynn’s front garden, beset by pound upon pound of ice slid from the roof. At one point I fancied myself quite the green thumb, although this didn’t stem (get it?) from any great knowledge of plants. It was […]

For Whom the Booth Tolls

Once upon a time, I was young (it’s true!). I was young but I thought I was relatively grown up, being in the sixth grade and all. Being in the sixth grade, I had a reading book, and in this reading book was a selection from The Phantom Tollbooth, which I dutifully read as it […]

Steaming About STEM

The world is a changing place, which I’m sure is all for the better, except for the part where none of it feels better. Here locally, we have a liberal arts college, I mean university, busily abandoning the liberal arts. I was going to write about this a month ago, but I thought I would […]

Jeepin’ With Janelle

I believe we’ve established I generally don’t know what I doing, technologically at least, when it comes to this blog, particularly after WordPress thought it was a great idea to switch to “blocks,” whatever they may be. Some of you have been kind enough to post comments after you’ve read an entry, and while I […]

Cowed by Vaccine

Lynn got the call, although it was probably a text: she goes today at precisely 3:54 for her initial covid vaccination. Gunnison County will administer more than 500 first doses today, bringing our county total to just under 6,700 injected arms, which at an estimate would be roughly 37 percent of the population. Except that […]

Covid Tantrum

This is my first pandemic, outside those I’ve found in history books, and after thinking it over for the better part of a year, I have decided: I am just not enjoying it. I mean, I didn’t really need nearly a full year to mull this over, to conclude I’m not having much fun, but […]

The State of Texas

Looking at the state of the State of Texas these days, it’s easy to ask “How could this get worse?” but we shouldn’t, because every day it does. An 11-year-old boy may have frozen to death yesterday — in his own home. Pictures of the water damage are overwhelming before we even start to consider […]

Workers Untied

On my way to the blog this morning, I passed this headline: “Millions of jobs probably aren’t coming back, even after the pandemic.” I haven’t made it to the story yet, but I don’t really need to, because I’m living it. Not that I am unemployed, or on the verge of it, but yesterday was […]

Food for the Ages

Once, many years ago, I’m pretty sure in an effort to shock a babysitter, I put blue food coloring in my peanut butter sandwich. It did look horrible, all right, and if I’m recalling this correctly the babysitter did find it suitably off-putting. But there’s a chance I might have found it that way, too, […]