all those sparrows arguing in the gutter over nothing

Just posted a flash story on Patreon!

September newsletter is a thing! buttondown.com/kijjohnson/a...

favorite part of the ren faire: the daddy long-legs crossing the pub floor in the sunlight

I was teargassed during GTO and it sucked. If you have asthma or ENT stuff, stay away, it's dangerous for you. Everyone else: it's SCARY, but don't freak out. Bring a sealed qt. bottle of water & clean cloth in a ziploc for washing out your eyes nose & mouth. Help the person next to you.

this particular vulture circling with ragged wings is anything but cliche

coffee killed the spider I didn't see in my cup crisis averted for me anyway (riffing on yours, #owenly!)

barely rolling forward black walnuts in the street hungry squirrels

the startled cat kicks off the ottoman sets it spinning

the cat spurning her dinner again trusting the future

Too hot for falling leaves— Too many leaves falling to still be summer

I've been lying low, but progress is happening. I have new meds, and I have PT for inner ear stuff starting this Friday. I've been sleeping 12-16 hours/day, but as of yesterday, I realized it wasn't because I needed it; I just really like sleep. Today's goal: don't sleep all day.

Feeling very unlyrical: spent large chunks of yesterday in the ER w/ severe nausea/vertigo/tinnitis. More antinausea meds than I knew existed and I was still throwing up. Apparently no tumors; could be Meuniere's, could be severe migraine, could be something else. Home today, making doctor appts.

while I was trying to write a bright blue distraction the pencil-sized newt on the deck

Three yellows— the bumble bee the Clouded Sulphur the first fallen leaf

eyes closed the cat noses the air smelling I don't know what

cicada on the wing dopplers past my door

crow growling at dawn from its nest— owl swinging by for a bedtime snack

crowd of sparrows argue in the parking lot what's the buzz?

looking up three layers of cloud moving three directions

all the windows open night frogs and cicadas shout it out

A microscopic tardigrade going for a stroll through some algae. Credit: Sinclair Stammers

When the heat breaks even the cicadas sound relieved

Monkey King, Wu Cheng'en in Julia Lovell's charming & hilarious translation. I reread it because I wanted something meatier than the mysteries I'd been reading, but it's so funny & well-written that I've been gulping it down like a favorite novel. Which, I had forgotten, it is. #booklog

apricot stones all over the lawn after the fawn's breakfast

fawn and doe the mother wary of me as the fawn nurses

even in an offyear cicadas outshout the lawnmower

small spider in the folded wool blanket unseasonable

New flash story on Patreon!

crack of thunder cold wind through the window predawn rain

basket nest in the reeds by the islet the parents yell at me

kayaking I scared the eagle into dropping the fish

August sounds cicadas, a flicker, children, a car, a man laughing

louder than the garbage truck-- cicada

after days of smoke the deer is bright as paint in the clear air

Nat Park Service gets salty: "Standing on clear-cut hillsides with a bucket of garbage in each hand, they looked down on the rivers, saw carp swirling happily in the mess humans had created, and made a correlation—albeit the wrong one—between the rise of carp and the fall of game fish." #research

Newsletter! buttondown.com/kijjohnson/a...

this lovely unlabeled stone did I find it or buy it or was I born with it

what with everything last night's lightning storm soothed me to sleep

young crabapples just like the lithograph in that old book

only the one bird this specific dusk

Workshops are now over for another year! It all made me so happy this year. Barbara, Jo, and Vince made it perfect. And now, back to game design, writing fiction, and the rest of life. #novelarchitects #amwriting

every year I give up on the tree frogs they day before they start singing

July sky-- three flying crows a changing scalene triangle

her try/fail: the cat flops across my hands on the keyboard and now I can neither write nor pat (haibun counts, I think)

Workshops head into the fourth week. I love it but also, getting a touch tired? #novelarchitects

last night more fireworks than fireflies but I know which I watched

Sent out a story yesterday that is NOT the Cuthbert story. It was a productive week!

in the grass by my foot a rust-capped sparrow the size of my thumb

"I propose that the 'Western Haiku' simply say a lot in three short lines in any Western language. Above all, a Haiku must be very simple and free of all poetic trickery and make a little picture and yet be as airy and graceful as a Vivaldi Pastorella." Jack Kerouac. Do I agree? I'm finding out.