It's Better in Wyoming.

Richard Lanham says that, in an environment where information is ubiquitous, the real currency is attention. Ira Shor says that one of the impediments to critical consciousness is the acceleration of mass culture. In other words, reflective thought is hindered by the sheer pace and amount of distracting stuff going on around us. So it’s odd to be in a place where people momentarily ignore the gigantic press of accelerated, saturated culture, and just listen for a few minutes. The effect, on me, is melancholy, and I still haven’t quite figured out why. Tonight it was a reading by several talented grad students in UW ’s creative writing program. Maybe 30 people were there; not a bad turn-out. And we sat there for about an hour-and-a-half, just listening . What is it about these moments of attention? How rare it is that I notice myself paying attention. How rare it is that I choose to give my attention fully to some task. How rare it is that the task at hand create

So Kaijsa helped me host a rockin' 30th birthday party over the weekend. I thought it was a pretty fun time, yeah. I've noticed, at parties, before, that lots of people seem to congregate in the kitchen. So we moved most of the food out to the living room, trying to spread people out a bit. But it seemed like everytime I went to the kitchen to grab a drink, more people had accumulated there. I've got two theories: 1. It's about booze. People need a new drink, so they head to the fridge. When they arrive in the kitchen, they discover a couple people hanging out and end up joining a conversation. Then somebody else comes in, and there's a snowball effect: pretty soon 60% of the party is in the kitchen; you can hardly even open the fridge to grab another beer. 2. It's about being a good guest. Carpet in the rest of the house; linoleum in the kitchen. If you're the kind who might end up spilling a glass of wine/bottle of beer/bowl of chips/plate of li

It's interesting to see who visits my site. So far I don't have many faithful readers, and most of them I know (Hi sister! Hi Kaijsa!) in real life. So the more interesting visits are the people who end up here when they're searching, harmlessly, for something like "oil field trash motorcycle." No, seriously. Somebody ended up here after typing those search terms into Google. Most of the people who end up here accidentally, though, are searching for Veedauwoo. If you're one of those people, let me just say: it's worth it. I'm not a rock climber, so I can't give much advice about the technical difficulty of the routes. But I can give you advice on the beauty of the place. It's worth it. I grew up near the Black Hills, which are spectacular. But Veedauwoo is on a different level entirely. Make the trip. Enjoy the ride. Bring your mountain bike and ride Happy Jack. Fish at North Crow. Have a foil dinner at Tie City. Watch the suns

I typically consider myself apolitical. I just have never understood much about how the giant machinery actually causes noticeable, sustained changes in my day-to-day life. But this year I've been taking various political quizzes online, trying to figure out who I might fall in line with. The problem is, I don't fit the party lines very well. I'm pro-life, pro-death penalty, but also in favor of gun control and embryonic stem cell research. I think the war in Iraq won't improve in the foreseeable future and don't think that our presence there is diminishing the overall growth of terrorism. I think that an opportunity to make private investment a part of Social Security might make sense, but confess ignorance about how large the risks might be (to the system, I mean, not to individuals). I think we need a balanced budget but that governmental social and cultural support programs are essential to a fair society. I think tax policies have played a part in an in