Bookmarks (52)

  • The Last Word On Nothing | Lugworms? Why, Certainly!

    [This post ran some years back, and I thought, hey, let’s revisit lugworms! I mean, is...

  • The Last Word On Nothing | In Praise of Minor Bulbs

    This first ran on April 5, 2021. In the years since, the Wisley blues remain fine...

  • The Last Word On Nothing | On Winthrop Pond

    This post originally appeared in March of 2023 All art is the original work of the...

  • The Last Word On Nothing | Peak Bloom, By Night

    One of the great signs of spring in Washington, D.C., is the herds of middle schoolers...

  • The Last Word On Nothing | Redux: Vanishing Points

    This essay originally appeared in 2012. If the artwork above looks familiar, the reason might be...

  • The Last Word On Nothing | Toward a theory of cuteness aggression

    I want a dog. For a while now, my awareness of this has been getting louder....

  • The Last Word On Nothing | This Is Not a Snake, Though It Is Snake Shaped

    Look at this worm!! Folks, I met this giant earthworm during a trip to a cloud...

  • The Last Word On Nothing | Science Poem: The Birds of Hyde Park

    Long before I knew that science writing could be a job, I wrote science poems. A...

  • The Last Word On Nothing | Space Is Real

    A defensive back playing for a Texas university football team recently said something unusual into a...

  • The Last Word On Nothing | The Queen’s Speech

    This piece initially ran exactly a year ago, and it’s no coincidence that the Canadian Broadcasting...

  • The Last Word On Nothing | Amphorae

    This post first appeared in March 2021. My longing for more spontaneous museum visits continues. A...

  • The Last Word On Nothing | Any Chance You Have Time to Read This Post?

    *If you are home and not busy, would F. be able to get a Ziploc of...

  • The Last Word On Nothing | Snapshot: The Raccoons of Jewel Key

    First light on Jewel Key found the tide out and the raccoons hungry. I followed one...

  • The Last Word On Nothing | Nobody Was Here

    I don’t know how I managed to not know this for my whole life, but here...

  • The Last Word On Nothing | Birding – PUBLISHED, Finally

    We, the People of LWON, write whatever the f*** we want. But on days when we...

  • The Last Word On Nothing | Sleep Talk with Me

    My 4-year-old has developed a borderline unhealthy obsession with Star Wars over the past month or...

  • The Last Word On Nothing | Remnant of Eden

    This post comes from 2015, which seems like lifetimes ago, and I don’t know what happened...

  • The Last Word On Nothing | Well THAT Smells Warm

    God damn it, advertising can be powerful. I mean, not that I would ever buy some...

  • The Last Word On Nothing | Kate Versus the Meteorite

    It came as a surprise, a gift from no one in particular: a blush-pink postcard tucked...

  • The Last Word On Nothing | Redux: I Saw Them Standing There

    It was 60 years ago today that the Beatles first appeared on “The Ed Sullivan Show.”...

  • The Last Word On Nothing | N is for Norman, eaten by a lionness

    This post originally appeared in March 2012. “It is with the deepest sorrow that I have...

  • The Last Word On Nothing | Getting Gravid

    This week we had our 22-week ultrasound, the detailed scan for all the things no one wants...

  • The Last Word On Nothing | Stuck In the Middle With Oystercatchers and You

    We often celebrate the beginnings of things, and the ends of things, but what about the...

  • The Last Word On Nothing | A Sevenmile Stream Story

    Years ago, Carol Evans, then a Bureau of Land Management biologist in northeastern Nevada, told me...

  • The Last Word On Nothing | Under the Kitchen Table is One Option

    I have had occasion to mention January before, once with hard eyes and grit and once...

  • The Last Word On Nothing | The moon in my skin

    Life has fallen so quiet latelythatlight takes on the quality of soundwhen there is none. I...

  • The Last Word On Nothing | Free the Tree

    One Sunday in November, my boyfriend and I were arriving back at his house at noon...

  • The Last Word On Nothing | Chasing the northern lights

    I can’t remember why I decided I needed to see the northern lights again. Maybe it...

  • The Last Word On Nothing | The internet and the overmind

    When the internet was young, David Bowie was asked by a skeptical journalist whether it would...

  • The Last Word On Nothing | Our Moon

    Our Becky wrote a book. It came out yesterday. It’s beautiful. And I got to talk...

  • The Last Word On Nothing | Guest Post: I Went Searching for Rattlesnakes and the Most Dangerous Thing I Found Was My Own Urine

    In the early days of the pandemic, I found myself faced with a test of courage...

  • The Last Word On Nothing | Bat Facts (Kate’s Version)

    Note: This is a personal essay that happens to include a lot of neat facts about...

  • The Last Word On Nothing | Along the Urban Ecotone

    The skirt of Las Vegas, Nevada, is a frictional zone scrubbed with busted tortoise shells and...

  • The Last Word On Nothing | The Completion Portfolio

    Disclaimer: If you come here for the science, you can skip this post. I feel like...

  • The Last Word On Nothing | Train Time

    Pete and I just got back from a winter trip to Colorado. It was a real...

  • The Last Word On Nothing | Number the Days

    I first wrote the following post about how much I love new calendars in January 2020,...

  • The Last Word On Nothing | Day Tripper

    This post first ran on Dec. 31, 2010, though with a different main image, and it...

  • The Last Word On Nothing | Not Everything Is Terrible

    Ed. note: It’s easy to believe that literally every single thing on this earth is broken,...

  • The Last Word On Nothing | The People of LWON Tell You What to Watch

    Welcome to the second of three LWON end-of-2023 lists. This time, we look back at the...

  • The Last Word On Nothing | The People of LWON Tell You What to Read

    Welcome to a longstanding LWON tradition: our end-of-year recommendation lists. The idea is to provide our...

  • The Last Word On Nothing | Redux: A Grayling Visit

    Earlier this week, I found myself scrolling through photos on my computer, reminiscing semi-fondly on the...

  • The Last Word On Nothing | Guest post: A plunge into the artificial sweat industry

    Some time ago I purchased a tiny bottle of synthetic sweat from a reputable chemical company...

  • The Last Word On Nothing | The physics of melt

    Snow is blank only briefly—just after it falls. Then pass coyote deer rabbit you meand the...

  • The Last Word On Nothing | Science-ish Poem: Right Then

    My blue jay friends are back, tap-dancing on my balcony to get my attention, peering accusingly...

  • The Last Word On Nothing | Live-Tweeting🚀the🛰️Space💥War😠

    I first wrote this November 29, 2021, but I could have written the same take-home many...

  • The Last Word On Nothing | Puppet shows for the AI

    A place is set at a lavishly decorated table. The drape of the tablecloth is just...

  • The Last Word On Nothing | What’s the Story?

    Sometimes a photo from the past calls out, demanding a story. In this case, no one...

  • The Last Word On Nothing | Lessons from the Witch Tree

    A few years ago, I decided to buy a Christmas tree. I’m culturally Jewish, conceptually agnostic,...

  • The Last Word On Nothing | Swing and a Miss

    Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor died on Friday. This essay regarding her influence on...