Blog

The Gelflings are trans
And trans people are Gelflings. ‘Now, we leave you the Crystal of Truth,’ the Beings tell the Gelflings who are no longer Gelflings — because they are finally being left alone.

‘Red flags’ in queer dating aren’t the problem
What we compromise on lies beyond the red flag. A ‘red flag’ is a difference that alarms or confuses you. Though the flag itself isn’t a conflict, it may lead you to suspect your date isn’t a good match.

Empathy for cis people
Trans people have it because we don’t live in a trans bubble. My jaw hit the floor. I picked it up and put it back in. It fell out again. It rolled under the sofa and I have spent the last two weeks looking for it.

Climate change, predicted (three decades ago)
Returning to an environmental classic: ‘The Ages of Gaia’ by James Lovelock. We don’t yet know what it will be like when the forests are gone. But we should live in a way that prevents this outcome. We must support our own survival.

The Industrial Revolution: All of it has to change again
Trains represent where we’ve been & where we‘ll go next. Steel, aluminum, concrete; fossil fuels; electric light; transportation, communication, refrigeration, medicine. Do we know what we have to change?

Tadpoles teach us in Kern’s ‘Real Sugar’
Stories for those who feel ‘fragile about frogs’. We can grieve “all the frogs that aren’t.” Some of our stories going forward, though, have to be about the frogs that are. Which will those be?

How we’re here now: Poems of California
Poems in ‘Rift Zone’ and ‘Last West’. We know in our bones what being is. Because we are. ‘To be’ is to exist in a place, to grow, to break off, to feel how this ties us to past and future.

We know who’s responsible for orange sky
We need to hold them accountable. It’s Exx-smog and Shell-smoke. The big orange cats must be held accountable, and there’s more than one. Each of us has a role to play.

Designing a town people can get around? Repeat this exercise.
Anna Zivarts reminds us how we can take an hour to try harder. Sometimes we lack empathy for each other’s transportation needs and preferences. We have no idea because we haven’t stopped to try.