In my aim toward achieving complete environmentalist hypocrisy, I’ve been driving too much. I drove up to Salt Lake, back to Flag, down to Tucson and up to Torrey, Utah, making a big circle of the intermountain west with the tires of my car. My Rav4 is a hybrid, but it still only gets like 38 miles to the gallon. It still produces plenty of CO2. And, also, my Toyota has 56,782 miles on it, and I haven’t even paid off the loan yet. Still, driving is probably better than flying, and I was able to see my entire family and a bunch of friends, so I justify it and promise to pay my carbon tax by not eating red meat.
On one of these driving trips, my husband, Erik, our son and I went to visit my husband’s parents in Torrey, Utah for the Fourth of July, leaving our daughter behind to work at Chipotle and to manage the animals and water the garden and to hang out with her cooler-than-her-parents friends. Torrey is a small town, population about 300, right outside of Capitol Reef National Park. Although Utah, and especially Southwestern Utah, is as arid as Arizona, more streams flow from the green mountains down into the red rock lined canyons. We paddle boarded on the Forsyth Reservoir one of the days and fly fished on the Fremont every day. My son caught his first fish. My husband caught a bunch. Even I cast my line into the water because I could stand in cool, running water all day long. I may as well have a rod in my hand. I’m probably the only one who would eat a just-caught fish—what with my love of trout and my general hypocrisy about all things environmental.
My former student went to see the Subhumans in Phoenix late last fall. I’ve loved this punk rock band since I was twelve-years-old. Their dark point of view satisfied me. Their song “The Cradl… Read moreImpossible individualism: Us fish must swim together
I didn’t mean to fall in love with Brine Shrimp. In 2017, for my birthday, my friend Angie gave me an ecosphere—an egg-shaped glass enclosure in which three brine shrimp swam among oxygenating… Read moreNicole's Impossibly Possible Ideas: Brine shrimp
I have a confession to make. I adopted two new kittens. After Zane the cat got lost last April, I couldn’t stop missing him. Zane, half Maine Coon, half koala bear, was my person. He slept bet… Read moreNicole's Impossibly Possible Ideas: Impossible Hospitals
On June 30th, I took a trip with my friend Beya and our youngest boys to Clear Creek Reservoir to paddleboard. The wind was strong. The water was murky. The sun was hot. We managed to make it … Read moreNicole's Impossibly Possible Ideas: Impossible College
I was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. The nouns in that sentence define nearly all of my writing. My hometown, paradoxically named, shaped my aesthetic. I write from a first-person point of view… Read moreNicole's Impossibly Possible Ideas: One and done
Newly elected governor Katie Hobbs, in her inauguration speech, vowed to repeal the universal vouchers, officially known as Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESAs) â€� double-speak for if you’re… Read moreNicole's Impossibly Possible Ideas: Boot Straps
It was precisely 97 minutes ago that we wrapped up Spring Semester 2022. By the time you’re reading this, it will be September 1 and Fall Semester 2022 will be well underway. They say there’s … Read moreNicole's Impossibly Possible Ideas: A wormhole summer
