Grief in Isolation

Content warning: this blog post is about the loss of a parent & impacts of the pandemic.

A gosling snubbed me XD

She thought I had food, but I could only offer my love.

Baby goose wasn’t impressed.

I still love the little fluffhead.

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Blog Reformatting in Progress!

Oh, wow! A post! It’s been a long time – what happened? Did I meet a cursed teapot again?

Naaaah, I just finished my dissertation and moved from Texas to Connecticut. New Year’s goal accomplished, just in time for the next one.

I’m cleaning up posts this week (checking links to make sure they work, adding more images if needed, including “update” sections, etc) so some posts may be turned private until 2017. Nothing to worry about, I’m not being hacked.

Expect a few writing-related posts in the near future!

The ghosts under my feet

Good news, everybody! I ESCAPED TEXAS!

Better news: my new house is haunted! Especially the basement! Dim the lights, and you can see the spindly ghosts emerge. Happy October, Darlings.

Lights on (left) and lights dimmed (right). Boo.

My Blue Sargasso

When my mind is unoccupied with science, it becomes troubled. O, how I yearn for the depth and quiet of the Sargasso Sea. There, I fell in love with the ocean. On a research vessel battered by the mid-Atlantic gyre, beneath constellations without names. Landbound, I’d never seen a sky from horizon to horizon. It’s a remarkable thing, this bubble around us, this little skin against oblivion.

What can I do when the oblivion finds a home within me? Dream of ginseng tea, saltines, and a blue that could swallow me if I let it.

View from the RV Atlantic Explorer

Nightmare 7/8/2016

I died during a nightmare. It’s never happened before.

One caveat: I almost never dream about myself. Likewise, 99% of my dreams unfold in imaginary places, made-up cities, ruins, worlds. However, last night was different. I dreamed about the A&M campus (where I work), and I was Darcie. So here’s the dream. FYI, this post is a diary entry, not a piece of creative fiction. Hard to tell with me sometimes …

Anyway, I’m about to describe a nightmare, so proceed with caution. No gore. Themes of death. Possibly boring. Bananas are bananas. Etc.

Hello, Future! My 2016 Resolutions

Me in 2015

Me in 2016

Courtesy of DreamSelfy, 2015 Little Badger (left) and a projection of 2016 Little Badger (right).

The new year is coming! To honor Time, It That Steals All Things, I’ve constructed an elaborate list of resolutions! Behold:

1. Escape Texas

Wish me luck!!!! 😀

The spider is the moon: pictures from my Sunday adventure

Tonight, the spiders cling to hidden webs. The moon is a spider. The trees are her many legs.

The streetlamp is just a streetlamp.

Twilight is delightful when its colors are inverted. The streetlamps devour all souls! AAAH!

On a serious note, I’ve been working 24/7 on a scientific poster about phytoplankton genes, so it was great to stretch my legs this evening. I filmed a spider (pictured above) as she built her web – the process took thirteen minutes and was really relaxing. No wonder they’re into web-making.

A Haunting From The Past :D

Spooky alert! I was Skyping with my mom tonight, when this happened:

Mom
‎11‎:‎48‎ ‎PM
So, today I got a weird email from the person who now owns our Tex home (note – we lived in this house for 3 years when I was a teen)…. she & her husband wanted to know if we ever experienced anything strange at the home because her 6 yr old apparently has.‏

me
‎11‎:‎49‎ ‎PM
What kind of weird things?

Mom
‎11‎:‎50‎ ‎PM
Oooooooo, oooooooo‏
She did not explain.‏ She just introduced herself then asked if we had.‏

We have a mystery, Watson! I hope the new family didn’t pull up the living room floorboards, because my brother and I hid secret notes under them. Nothing scary, though. I think? It’s hard to remember. Would Teen Little Badger put spooky notes under the floorboards? Oh dear …

A Night at the Haunted Menger Hotel

For a blog called “Little Badger Diary,” this place lacks autobiographical posts. That oversight changes today!

San Antonio has a decent share of legendary ghosts and haunted buildings. To celebrate the year’s end, my father and I took a late-night tour (Sisters Grimm Dinner and Ghost Tour) of haunted historical San Antonio. Wearing a black dress with petticoats, our charming guide led us from the Alamo to a prison-turned-Holiday Inn. The whole experience took four hours, including dinner, and was well worth the fee. Here are some highlights of the night, captured by my dad’s Kodak EasyShare C330 (2005)! I modded the camera with a SpectralFind lens. The SpectralFind lens is a must-have for any ghost/cryptid hunter, since it amplifies the preternatural waves that are emitted by spirits and Bigfoot eyes.

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Sallie White, a regular ghost at the Menger, often walks through this hall. A former chambermaid, she sometimes enters rooms at night and cleans, to the horror of sleeping guests. I hope she followed me home, because my house is messy.