20Nov

And a good Boing Boing to you

Speaking of all and/or any things retro, I think a website that first started publishing in 1995 definitely qualifies as “retro” if not downright antique. So imagine my bemusement this morning when I clicked on an Apple news story only to realize I had been directed to Boing Boing. Home of many links and wonderful thinks; blog I’ve been reading since blogs crawled out of the ocean and grew legs. I guess that would be circa 2000? The year we didn’t all die from our computer programming glitch…

Anyway. The article that caught my eye was about the demolition of the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico. Since 1963, it has been part of the famed search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) most popularly recounted in the movie Contact starring Jodie Foster (from the book Contact by esteemed writer Carl Sagan).

In 1997, when Contact came out, I was in grad school at the University of Arizona (UofA), a partner in making the first Mars lander & rover— the Pathfinder and Sojourner. You could wander the science buildings, peering through fences at the landscapes where they tested the rover’s abilities to drive over Mars-like terrain. Red desert rocks strewn into perfect random patterns, surrounded by state of the art ceiling-to-floor glass windows and fancy conference tables & chairs.

I went to physics lectures, just looking to poach the language of science for its poetry. And I remember seeing the movie Contact, being more romanced by the isolation and struggle for success of Jodie Foster’s character Ellie than any of the actual science. But I was obsessed with observatories at the time, living out in the desert– a perfect place to watch the skies.

I remember seeing the Very Large Array (VLA) at the beginning of Contact–all those radio telescopes like giant satellite dishes turning toward the sound of what would (in the movie) turn out to be a message from an alien civilization. I did want to visit the VLA, and the Arecibo Observatory with its magnificently huge dish broadcasting and listening for messages to & from space.

But let’s be honest. I won’t be visiting either of those places. Arecibo is being torn down, and what would take me to New Mexico now? I’ve already been to White Sands National Monument, Chaco Culture National Historic Park, Carlsbad Caverns, Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Alamogordo, World Heritage Site Taos Pueblo, El Malpais National Monument, and the Rio Grande. I’m probably forgetting some places I’ve been, since I lived in the Southwest for years–and spent quite a bit of time camping & driving through later when I was unemployed. Hell, I loved that state. Maybe I should move there???

Three photos from a 2002 road trip to Taos Pueblo, New Mexico

Okay, that was a very deep hole I just fell down, into the abyss of my memories and the internet. Luckily you were there with a flashlight above water so I could eventually make my way back to the surface.

What I wanted to say, I guess, is that in the end– here I am 20 years after starting this blog, reading the same websites, loving the same movies, just feeling the synchronicity of life right now. There’s really nothing better than that is there.

UPDATE 12/1/2020: a piece of the Arecibo telescope has fallen through the dish, confirming the National Science Foundation’s decision to decommission and demolish the telescope. A sad day in the history of space exploration and science.

20Nov

Midnight Haiku

           Unexpectedly
Beautiful-restless birdsong
          As though it were day

Eucalyptus grove--
          In the dark, Heraclitus
Says we smell the soul

           This creaky bed
                              Not interested in my
                                                     sleeplessness

(written in 2004)

20Nov

Making Your Lunch

                                                                    after William Carlos Williams
You called from break to say
thank you for the peaches--
you had enjoyed them so. And
I did not tell you. That because
the fruit was not quite ripe,
because I did not want you to 
taste that bitter/tart--I 
sugared each slice. So that 
each cut fruit was sweet. That
                                              you should eat it.

(written in 2005)

20Nov

There are many ways I love you

Such as every time you're late, a little more
        and when that smile creeps up the edges of your face again

Moments we both throw our heads back and laugh, we probably
                    even forget exactly what self-consciousness is

I am cracked open, like an egg / like a geode / like a book
                                                   gilded edges shining in the silence

There are almost no words
            but I speak anyways, metaphors pouring from my lips

My fear is so loud and yet
           you listen anyways, the fence to my sparrow

A landing place
      a profound invisible string reaching out between us

It's been almost 10 years we’ve been together
      and my love does not flutter. It is calm & I reach out

From the inside to sing that this love is more stubborn
      than the hummingbird’s love of the flower,
                   the hammer’s fondness for the nail,
                                        and even the night’s tenderness towards the dark

November 18, 2020

19Nov

Hello world!

I am relaunching AccidentlyRetro, a blog I imagined when I was just 25 years old, a new resident of San Francisco, and loving my first job post-academic teaching life at a dot-com. The couches and ping-pong tables and keggers on Fridays were in full swing, and I wanted to be a part of everything.

Fast forward to 20 years later. I now work as an ICU nurse; I’ve been married and divorced; I lost myself to depression and PTSD for a time. But here I am, back again to claim my place on the internet. Even if all I ever do is scream into the void, I know at least the void is listening.

And if you’re reading this, now you are too. Let’s take a look at what inspired my sudden return to the world of the writer– a trip on the Wayback Machine recommended by my therapist…

I was so nostalgic–so happy and sad at the same time, which I guess must be the most basic definition of nostalgia itself–that I immediately searched to see what was at that website now. Turns out nothing… Probably because it is such an, ahem, alternate spelling of “accidently/accidentally.”

So here I am, domain purchased. Designing a WordPress blog, writing my first post. I did decide to jump ship on Blogger, which was my OG platform, but alas– not everything cam remain the same. One thing that is definitely different: my grammar has deteriorated significantly. What can I say? It’s less important now that I’m a nurse. I know the mechanism of action of a LOT more drugs though. *wink wink*

As I scrounge around the Internet archives, I will likely try to pull out some old gems from 2001-2004. We can look forward to those. In the meantime, let’s see what happens.