The last rain fell on July 10. They were saying that was it, it would be a long time before it came back. When the rain ends in Seattle it’s like time stops—and when it returns it’s like an old… Read More ›
Memoir
Decorative chains, lucky charms, symbols in garbage pails
In the morning it looked like it had rained over night, and the mountains were socked in with clouds. I took a last walk to the river but there wasn’t much to see, and the dog wasn’t out. The dog… Read More ›
Is, does, can, could: resolutions, one July
It’s gotten so that I can’t leave the windows open at night or it will get too cold. This morning it was 60 in the house and Dawn was in her sweater, cranky, like it was my fault. She’s at… Read More ›
‘Undead’
On the first day of summer I took my morning walk beneath a marine layer of clouds. The cool onshore flow was back, making the trees swish. The blackberry vines were starting to bud out with their green, knobby fists… Read More ›
The long wind down
On the last day of spring I walked to the lake in the morning, just past 5. It was light like it had been that way all day. I’d been up since 4, with the sounds of birdsong and fans… Read More ›
‘Here we were’
It was so warm outside I could write with my shirt off in the shade. The maple tree by the sports court looked like one of the figures on Easter Island with its long face, except for the bat house… Read More ›
Einmal ist keinmal, one more time
At the end of the summer, on the last days before school started, I’d go into the classroom with my dad at the school where he taught. There was a periodic table of the elements on one wall, chalkboards and… Read More ›
‘Time after time’
My dog is 42, but could still pass for 30. Life in seven year increments, a year at a time. Cork screwing the side of Cougar Mountain, past the Klondike marsh through the damp forest thinking about Orin Smith, former… Read More ›
Teaching machines to learn cause and effect
The twitch in my eye is the result of an outdated prescription, or from reading too much online at work, I’ve decided. The reading has been on artificial intelligence, training machine models to learn unsupervised through clusters of computers tied… Read More ›
Wilhelm’s mausoleom
I stopped by the dry cleaners, then the car wash — vacuumed out the pollen, the cottonwood, pine needles and dandruff, the nail clippings and dirt, then gathered wood to make a fire later, shook off the spiders from the… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 