Life in Kana-text (er… CONtext)
For those of us writers who are working outside the realm of big publishing-houses, we have to jump-start and generate our own publicity for what we write---so I have a proposal. For anyone who is game for posting a book review (on your blog or vlog or podcast or FaceBook, or wherever-it-is that you post … Continue reading A Reading Proposal for You, Reader:
In the Philippines, the streets are crowded with--- Well, I could just make that a full stop. The streets are CROWDED. But among the things that crowd them are specimens of a form of public transportation known as the "Jeepney"---a sort of mashup between jeep and school bus, often open-sided and always painted with incredible … Continue reading Here a Duck, There a Duck
"Pearls Before Swine" by Stephen Pastis I never realized that John Steinbeck was a biologist. It's not what he's known for, certainly, and it's not what he was educated for, but it's what he did, for a time. Actually, with regard to education, he left even his English degree incomplete... not that its lack held … Continue reading To Life, and Courage (and DuoLingo)
The summer I was 17, my uncle took my younger sister and me for a live-aboard week sailing around Lake Michigan. It was the beginning of my love-affair. I was already on a course toward Marine Biology studies, didn't yet have "my" lighthouse tattooed on my arm, but was on that course too, captivated by … Continue reading What Dreams are Shaped Like
I don’t love it that our sailboat is a five-hour drive from home. It’s hard to get away to go there, hard to tackle the work and projects that we have in mind, hard to get the boat-time I’d wish for, if I really had my way. But yesterday did remind me of one of … Continue reading Driven
We just signed the closing paperwork on the shape of our future: We bought a sailboat. Not a dink-around-the-shallows "plastic" white toy boat for weekends. (Not me!---Oh boy, I always leap into the deep end.) No, we bought a 42-foot blue-water cruiser to LIVE in. (A few years down the road, that is---but I do … Continue reading A Leap
One of the trickiest (read: "most harrowing") aspects of coastal sailboat-cruising is the process of DOCKING. Precisely placing a 40-foot boat into a right-angle slip is a maneuver that requires adroit steering, precise timing, 360-degree situational awareness, and (preferably) steel nerves. A sailboat doesn't have brakes, of course---so you'd better not come in too fast. … Continue reading On Docking, On Keels, On Seamonsters
Kana's Chronicles 