b.rox

I rented a car and drove west. All by myself. I drove and drove and drove until I got to Austin, Texas. And I thought to myself, how uncharacteristic. I felt like I hadn’t done anything like this before, at least not for a very long time. There was a reason for this pilgrimage, of [...]

Now we enter that half of the year where the days are longer than the nights. The equinox came this morning at fourteen minutes past midnight. I have to make an effort not to fixate on that single moment. I was asleep anyhow. Better to extend the celebration. The equilux was last Thursday here in [...]

Twenty-five years ago — I came home from Sweden with blue hair, much to my parents’ shock and my sister’s delight. At least I think she was delighted. Kind of hard to tell in this photo. Certainly I was glad to be back home. It was a great experience, my year abroad, but it was [...]

I got Persephone up at dawn to see the sunrise on our last morning at Vero. Unfortunately it wasn’t quite as dramatic as on the morning of the solstice. But it was still beautiful. Unfortunately I neglected to tell Xy I was getting our daughter up so early. I also neglected to inform her that [...]

And so it’s come to this, at last, inexorably and inevitably. The final day of our vacation. Persephone started her morning as she usually did, with some painting. I spent some time reading Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente, but I didn’t make much progress. I’d been picking away at it all week. This book reads [...]

Technically, the city of Vero includes plenty of beachfront. In fact the city officially changed its name to Vero Beach back in 1925 but old-timers like me still prefer to call it Vero. Anyway, my point is that I don’t feel like I’m in “town” when I’m standing in the surf staring out at the [...]

The theme for Wednesday was love. Look at the love in this picture. Mother and daughter on the beach, wading into the surf? You can’t beat it. They are loving each other and the ocean, loving the place and moment they are in. Another person who loved this place was Waldo Sexton. Like us, he [...]

Tuesday was the Summer Solstice. I got up super early (4AM by my body clock, which was still in the Central Time Zone) and headed down to the beach. It was still pretty dark, but even at that early hour the eastern sky held a faint glow which grew stronger slowly, slowly, as I watched [...]

I took a lot of photos on this vacation. Around 400, I think, the best of which are slowly finding their way into a set on Flickr. I’m using them to reconstruct the trip in my mind, to jog my memory as to what happened when. And yet there’s a gap. I didn’t take any [...]

Let’s see. My last post got us most of the way through Saturday. We arrived in Vero mid-afternoon and checked in at the Driftwood. Longtime readers may recall that Xy and I took a vacation here back in June of 2007, a week of lovebugs and lovemaking. We suspect our daughter was conceived in Vero. [...]

When my in-laws asked what time we should leave, I said 7AM, and they laughed, and my father-in-law suggested 9AM. Then it was my turn to laugh, quietly, to myself. In my mind I thought 10AM, but I didn’t take that too seriously either. When facing up to a long journey, I like to get [...]

So. My boss and I went to St. Louis for five days and four nights for POD 2010. Here are some notes on the whole experience. Perhaps most noteworthy, from a strictly personal perspective, was the fact that I co-presented at not one but two sessions. The first was called “Investigating Our Blind Spot,” which [...]

I thought about doing a photo series titled “Butts of St. Louis,” but I worried that the good citizens of that city might find it disrespectful. I would never, ever want to offend the residents of any Midwestern city that isn’t named Indianapolis. Plus, I only actually took two such photos. There’s twenty more photos [...]

25 years ago today I was visiting Moscow. That was a great trip, which remains a highlight of my life. Back in 1985, visiting Moscow was no trivial thing for an American. It meant going behind the “Iron Curtain.” It was toward the end of the so-called Second Cold War. Gorbachev had become the General [...]

I sat next to empty seats on my two flights up to Hartford (changing planes in Charlotte) so I didn’t talk to much of anyone until I got on the shuttle I’d reserved. I was sharing the vehicle with three young folks who looked to be in their mid-twenties. As we pulled away from the [...]

Strangely enough, just as Islamophobia seems to be reaching new heights here in the States, my boss is in Saudi Arabia. She was invited some months ago, to give workshops at two different women’s campuses on topics such as student motivation, active learning, planning for teaching, and so forth. It’s a great opportunity, of course. [...]

Many months ago, we booked a condo in Panama City Beach, Florida. (I should say, my mother-in-law booked the place. We consulted, but it was my in-laws’ dime.) This was well before the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon, long before oil started gushing out into the Gulf of Mexico. Needless to say of all the [...]

I spent the last week recovering from my family reunion. We have one every five years, and this was the tenth such event. The family is spread around the country pretty well (except for the northeast) so we have been rotating the location ever since my grandmother sold the farm. This time we were in [...]

So, what to do in a strange city when you’ve got a few hours to kill? I could have looked up my cousin, but I’ll see her in a couple months at our family reunion (sorry, Les) so I took a more adventurous approach. I put my web search skillz to use. I wanted to [...]

I just got back from a trip to Houston. I guess you might wanna zoom way in to find me. More to come. I’m a little preoccupied with packing and stuff. When I’ve sorted through my photos and papers I hope to post some notes about the conference I attended as well as my extra-curricular [...]