light of a million suns

Imagine a place where anything is possible. Now imagine it took the form of a blog on poetry, history, culture & science. ABOUT ME: trying my best to not be too nerdy. Wants to be a New England literati. Second choice: manic pixie dream boy. I cook food when you're not looking. I make references to obscure topics and get annoyed when you don't understand. But that's ok. I don't think I understand either. We can research it together.

[iugesorbust]

It's been a week

I apologize for being absent for over a week. Last Sunday seems like a month ago, so much has changed in just seven days. I was on the computer constantly, but under the barrage of updates about the country’s response to the epidemic was overwhelming. I just couldn’t make myself write up the food I was making and talk about the coronavirus more. The epidemic isn’t a fun apocalypse fantasy for me…

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[iugesorbust]

Hump-day Updates

I haven’t made anything particularly photogenic these past two days, but I figured it would be good to keep a record of what it is I’m doing to prepare. Recipes for white bean shakshuka and duck bibimbap are below.

Monday night, I made a big batch of shakshuka, a Turkish baked egg dish. It’s effectively eggs simmered in spiced tomato sauce. The recipe I used included white beans and feta,…

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[iugesorbust]

Buying beans at the Weekend Farmer's Markets

Buying beans at the Weekend Farmer’s Markets

Back to front: bok choy, garlic, duck, chestnuts and jujube, dried shitaake, glutinous rice, wood chips of some kind?, licorice root

It was an eventful weekend: Buttigieg dropped out, coronavirus reached NYC, and I bought an ungodly amount of beans.

On Saturday, after a nice brunch with my parents and sister where we talked about very important topics like facial hair for presidents (the…

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[iugesorbust]

Stocking up at HMart

Stocking up at HMart

Thank God it’s Friday, I need a minute to relax, unwind from the week’s news cycle, and start up this blog. I’ve just sat down after a successful trip to HMart (a chain of Korean supermarkets) and a delicious dinner. There’s now quite a lot stuffed into my freezer, my crisper drawers and tucked away behind my TV. It’s where I put things that don’t fit into my little Manhattan apartment pantry! I…

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[thegoodvybe]

[yermemeblog]

When you’re a duck and have places to be, but safety is key

[pikaglove]

I literally saw a goose do a similar thing while I was on the highway going to work

[tall-kiwi-nerd]

Omg

[cerix-the-gray-prince]

They are learning

[counterpunches]

#respectful law abiding birds

[sixpenceee]

[failed-mad-scientist]

Scarlet Witch - Anna Malkova

[sosuperawesome]

Embroidery Wall Art and Brooches

Shimunia on Etsy

See our #Etsy or #Embroidery tags

[jumpingemanon-deactivated201903]

25 Dystopian/Post-Apocalyptic Prompts

A resistance hidden in an unlikely place

What would you do if the power went out right now and never came back on?

An alien disease that spreads through spoken word.

The story of a child who grew up in a bunker.

“The football stadium was the last safe place.”

The story of someone who is unaware that the world ended.

Survivors telling stories around a campfire.

The internet has fallen but for some reason Snapchat still works and is the main mode of communication.

“There’s something haunting about hearing a classic-rock ballad played on an ukulele in the silence of the woods.”

A story about a guy whose sole mission is to spray paint warnings onto buildings.

The post-apocalyptic motorcycle gang finds a dog.

The Last Zookeeper.

The only safe time to be outside is at night.

What would happen if the Earth’s rotation slowed down and eventually stopped spinning?

The main characters of the last television show you watched try to survive End Times (a la “This is the End”)

Our plants are trying to kill us.

“Nukes: Coming Soon to a City Near You!”

You turn on a crackly radio.  There’s a voice on the other end, telling you to follow them on Twitter.  It’s the first human voice you’re heard in years.

We accidentally blew up our moon.

Write a story that takes place 30 years in the future with an Earth that’s been screwed by climate change.

Pros: We can fly now.  Cons: Gravity is not doing its job.

Write the opening scene to a post-apocalyptic movie, complete with a stellar opening song.

Paranormal apocalypse.

Write the backstory for the token preacher.

“Nothing brings people together like the end of the world.”

[iugesorbust]

Through Fire, Nature is Reborn (Ch 2)

A Wiccan/Hulkling fan fiction

Chapter 1 (link)

Billy and Teddy visit the Scarlet Witch to try to find answers about who or what Billy is. Spoilers for the recent The Vision series. CW: reference to suicide.

The Scarlet Witch’s apartment was filled with an eclectic mix of European Renaissance paintings, witchy herbs and talismans, and fake flowers. It reeked of incense and bitter herb smudges. Unlike Dr. Strange’s brownstone mansion, which felt well-curated and timeless, like an old museum, Wanda Maximoff’s apartment felt crowded and patchwork. It was an incongruous collection from the multiple lives the middle aged woman had lived: gypsy runaway, superhero, mother, sorceress, mental patient.       

 “Billy, Teddy, so nice to see you!” The Scarlet Witch floated in from the kitchen in a lacy red crochet jacket and white pants, carrying tea and cookies, like an ethereal Martha Stewart. Her voice was airy, her face carefully made up,  her lip-sticked smile warm, but the tenseness in the way she set the tray down on the coffee table revealed how she was just three words away from curling up and weeping.

“Thank you for seeing us on such short notice, Wanda.” 

Billy’s words were equally warm, but Teddy could hear the note of uncertainty. The underlying questions of 'who am I to you?' and 'who are you to me?’ appeared in their hand gestures and shifts in body language as they made small talk. He was her son, but not her son, who had been a magic wish that had evaporated like a soap bubble. She was his mother, but not by blood and not by nurture, but by some strange, cruel twisting of magic that had made her child someone else’s child.  Teddy filled in details in Billy’s recounting of their latest adventures. 

“I’m glad you enjoyed yourselves putting on a play, it sounds delightful.” Wanda sipped her tea, happy to play the role of encouraging mother-figure, “I’m sorry that I missed it."  

“I want to know more about where my magic comes from.”  

Teddy winced. Too blunt. 

 Wanda lifted her teacup, but did not sip. “I would be happy to talk to you about witchcraft. Did I tell you I recently walked the Witches’ Walk and was in the presence of the goddess Chaos? I met my biological mother, who herself was a witch. Her name is Natalya Romanoff, and she also went by the name Scarlet Witch." 

“But where does magic come from?” 

  She waved her hand around. “I’ve never truly been able tell. The nature of magical energy... I’ve heard countless theories, most contradicting the ones before. But Billy, why are you suddenly so curious?" 

“I’ve been having dreams. And the color of my magic has changed, according to Teddy. It’s gone from blue to purple." 

 A flicker of fear passed over the Scarlet Witch’s face and then was gone.  

“You know, magic — my magic, has not always been the most stabilizing force in my life. I can understand your curiosity. I do. I remember being your age."

Teddy interjected, “I think Billy and I are just concerned because he takes after you with how often external forces become attracted to his power. We know you’ve struggled with that."  

“It’s not external forces that I’m afraid of, Teddy. Wanda, I think you know what I’m interested in learning” Billy was giving the Scarlet Witch a glare. He looked like he was ready to shatter her egg-shell thin composure to get what he wanted.  “Did you hear I’m going to be the next Demiurge, that sometime soon I’m going to change magic to its core. Before that happens, and it could happen sooner than we both might like, I need to know who I am." 

“Billy, you know as much as I do,” she said gently but firmly. 

“I need to hear it from you." 

Teddy squeezed his boyfriend’s knee. The small mage looked just like his witch mother, just three words from breaking into pieces.  

Wanda wrapped her jacket around herself, and sighed.“Whatever you’re looking for, it’s not worth it. Can I get you more tea?"  

“Yes, please.” Teddy said, glad to give their hostess a chance to postpone this conversation with his boyfriend, even just for a little bit. She took his cup and moved to the kitchen.  

He studied her as she walked away. Teddy was a shapeshifter, a face-changer. He impersonated others by matching not just their appearances, but their voices and their mannerisms. He was pretty good at reading people. But Wanda was difficult. It wasn’t that she kept herself well guarded, the opposite in fact. Like her apartment, her various identities layered over each other discordantly, like peeling wallpaper. And it was as if there were pieces of her that were missing, gouges layered over but not filled. He could easily mimic her face and voice, wave his hands and speak in mystical jargon, but his impersonation would never be complete because Wanda already acted like an actress playing a role.   

She returned with a full cup of chamomile tea and a calmer composure. "Here you go, Teddy."  

“And in regards to your question, Billy, there is something about your birth that you should know. I don’t remember it."  

She sat down on the couch and looked out the window. The afternoon light brought out the creases of her face. She was no longer young, but the gap between Billy and her was not enough to make sense biologically. Her children, the children she had born, would have only been in their early preteens had they continued to live as flesh and blood. She turned back, her eyes watering.  “I was told that they weren’t real. That my children were just figments of my imagination."  

“I know,” Billy was growing impatient. He knew the sad story of the Scarlet Witch’s mental breakdown.   

“My memory of that time…my marriage, my delivery… I only have fragments. Dr. Strange said that it would be better this way."  

“Dr. Strange took your memories?"  

She nodded. “I know you want answers, but I’m sorry, I can’t give you what you want. I’m not much of a mother, am I?" 

 “Wanda, you’re too hard on yourself. Billy isn’t trying to be harsh, he’s just worried.” Teddy’s hands find hers. 

“But what about Master Pandemonium?” Billy voice quivers, “Would the Vision know about this?" 

 The Scarlet Witch stood up abruptly, pulling her hand from Teddy’s. “Don’t you dare talk to that, that, soulless... thing."  

Billy and Teddy stare at her open-mouthed. She makes a dark, mirthless laugh.   

“You don’t know, do you? You were busy with your little play. My ex-husband built himself a new family, a new wife — a robotic copy of me with my brainwave patterns, and two brand new children." 

“I’m so sorry,” Teddy said.  

“I have half-siblings?” Billy said at the same time.  

“Let me finish. This new wife, this robot me, became emotionally unstable and killed several people, consuming the family in…ugliness. She had my memories, right, and they drove her mad. She destroyed everything, she destroyed the Vision, or rather, the Vision destroyed himself. He destroys everything he touches, so don’t even think of going to him."  

“Would this robot version of you know about my birth?" 

“Billy!” Teddy shouted. 

“She’s dead. She killed herself” Wanda said, “they're all dead. Except the Vision."   

The two of them returned to stunned silence.   

“Billy, take this as a cautionary tale. This is what happens when you go mucking in the past for forgotten secrets." There was a hardness to her voice now. She was a fragile woman, but she had not gotten where she was without a few lessons on guarding herself.  

Billy shamefaced, searched for words,“Wanda, I just want to prepare myself. I’m worried about not finding out what I am until it’s too late." 

“You’re Wiccan. You’re Billy Kaplan. That’s going to have to be enough." 

“OK. Ok. One more question, and then we’ll leave.”   

Wanda sighed and sat down. “I’m not trying to scare you or push you away, Billy. You probably don’t realize this, but you’re the only family I have left. My parents, the people who raised me, are dead. My brother, Pietro, he just wants to control everything and everyone around him. I love him, but I can’t be around him anymore. And, I know you have a family of your own, I know our relationship is confusing, but it means so much to me that you still want to be like a son to me." 

“I - I’m glad I can be here for you too,” Billy stammered. 

Teddy could feel that his boyfriend was feeling overwhelmed with Wanda’s emotional honesty, and that Wanda was worried she was on the verge of driving her son away.  “And we’re both really looking forward to seeing you again soon,” he added, “but we should probably head home soon." 

Wanda nodded. She was silent for a moment, pursing her lips. “What was your last question?" 

“Oh, um.” Billy was gathering his things.   

“It’s alright. I didn’t mean to scare you." 

“Am I, is my soul from…Mephisto?" 

“I don’t know,” She whispered, “I think so."   

“What is that going to mean for me?" 

She just shook her head. She looked tired, a middle-aged woman from Eastern Europe who had seen horrors beyond imagining. 

“I’m a witch, but I’m also your mother." 

“What?" 

“Seek to know no more, William Kaplan."

[iugesorbust]

Through Fire, Nature is Reborn (Ch 1)

A Wiccan/Hulkling Fan-Fiction

Billy investigates his convoluted origin, and learns that some things are best left unknown. CW: body horror 

“Is it me, or is your magic looking a little purple?” 

 “Purple?” 

 Billy and Teddy, former teen super-heroes, currently super-powered theater bums with a way-too-nice apartment in midtown, were eating takeout curry sprawled on their floor. Billy had just spilled a few drops of bright red sauce onto the carpet and had magicked it away. 

 “Yeah, purple-ish,” Teddy repeated, shoveling another curry-laden piece of naan into his mouth.

 “What color is it normally?”

 “Blue. It’s usually a pale blue.“ 

“Huh.” Billy was silent was a long minute. Teddy began to wonder if what he’d said had somehow upset his boyfriend. 

“What color is the Scarlet Witch’s magic to you?" 

“Red. Or I suppose, scarlet.” Teddy shifted to a sitting position. "I’m confused, do you not see any of this when you’re casting magic?" 

“Not really." 

“What does it look like to you?” “Um. Well, it’s kind of like a ripple in reality when I use magic. When the Scarlet Witch uses it, it looks like…probability changing? It’s kind of hard to describe. And then when Magik or Dr. Strange uses a spell, it looks like a pattern.“ 

“A pattern?" 

Billy nodded slowly. He silently spooned more curry into his mouth. 

“Look, it’s not a big deal, your magic’s color. Let’s change the topic.” There was no telling what could set off his boyfriend’s moods. He was always supportive, but even after dating since high school, Billy’s mind could be a minefield of emotion, and the intricacies of his magical abilities was always a touchy subject. 

 “What did you think of the final performance of “Wiccan”?” He asked, referring to the closing of their Off-Broadway show parodying the show Wicked, but with superheroes instead of the Wizard of Oz. It did ok. Critics were enthusiastic if a bit confused. 

 “Teddy, I think I should find out where my magic comes from.” Billy must have read the look of concern and confusion on his face, as he continued with a comforting smile. “I’m fine, really. But I think it’s time I decide what I am. Mutant? Personification of reality? Just a really strong wish?” He chuckled with the last one. 

“That’s not funny.“ 

“What’s not funny?" 

“When Loki convinced me that you had wished me into existence, it made me doubt everything. It’s not something you can joke about." 

Billy frowned. “Calm down, Space King. I wasn’t talking about you, I was talking about me. I really am a wish made real.” 

 Teddy took a sip from his beer, mentally wincing at his misreading of the situation, and smirked, “I wonder if there’s anyone with powers that doesn’t have a convoluted backstory. You and Tommy, though, that’s hard to beat.”

 Billy scraped the last of his meal from the takeout container. “Yeah. The Scarlet Witch magicked us, me and Tommy…” 

He set down his things and put his hands in his lab. “Well she magicked a Billy and a Tommy…into existence." 

“Right." 

“It would be nice to know some more details." 

Teddy picked up all the empty containers, then walked to the sink to rinse and add to the recycling.  

“Aw thanks. I could have done that.” Billy said absent-mindedly. 

 He turned the tap on hot and felt the sting of heat on the tips of his fingers. Reflexively, his hands became green and scaly. Something was bothering Billy, and he wasn’t saying. There was a twisting in Teddy’s stomach.   

 That night, they made love, too quickly and without the dizzying passion that Teddy expected from Billy. They cleaned themselves off, and lay half-asleep facing each other, hands resting on top of the others’. Teddy broke the silence. “So, why does it matter where your magic comes from?” 

 “It matters because it could be important to who I am, what I can do, how I evolve as a magic-user. Think how important it was to learn your heritage." 

“Yeah, huge relief to learn that I’m Dorrek the Eighth, heir to both the Skrull and Kree Empires and now, somehow, also another kind of space king." 

“The prophesied scion of the legendary Kree-Skrull hybrid kings and inheritor of Excelsior, magical sword of the Knights of the Infinite." 

“Yeah, that.” He couldn’t help but smile. Then he remembered where he was going with his warning. “What I’m trying to say, Billy, is that there’s no guarantee that learning this new thing about yourself will help you in any way, and with our luck, digging around will only get you or someone else hurt." 

“I just want closure. To understand a little more about what or who I am.” “I understand, just be careful.“ 

 Billy sighed, loudly, and rolled away.  "I’m just going to ask the Scarlet Witch, maybe Dr. Strange. I have bits and pieces of information, but I want to know the whole story, even if its dark and upsetting.”   Teddy took the opportunity to drape his arm over his boyfriend and pull him closer. 

 “I know.“ 

“Goodnight. I love you." 

“Love you, too. Goodnight." 

    Billy dreamt he was at a party, a crowded apartment with too many people and loud music. It was his birthday, he remembered. He squeezed through the crowd of people he didn’t recognize, moving from room to room in a house he didn’t know. He began to overheat, the house was becoming hellishly hot, but no one else seemed to care. He entered a bedroom at the end of a hall, and the sounds of the party ceased. In the hot gloom, he saw his mother,  the Scarlet Witch, sitting on the bed, long brown hair covering her face. She’s waiting for me, Billy thought. He sat down at the end of the bed and waited. The Scarlet Witch crawled over and lay a long-nailed hand on his bare back. Her nail began to prick at his skin, like a good scratching feeling. Then she was scratching the inside of his chest. Dark blood dripped from his breast, and looking down he saw that she had scratched through an upside-down pentagram onto his pectorals. There was a knock on the door. A little boy peaked in. He had dark brown hair and hazel eyes, he looked just like Billy when he was really little. The little Billy ran to him and jumped on him, knees on his stomach, and began pulling at the broken skin on his chest. For some reason, this was the scariest part. Billy’s heart raced, trying to push him off, but he couldn’t move.  The Scarlet Witch was holding his arms. The skin of his chest was being picked away to reveal a hollow filled with red flames. The little boy’s arms caught fire, but he still kept clawing, his prepubescent face scrunched up in frustrated concentration. Billy was afraid, but now hot anger also grew within him. He’s trying to take it, he thought. It’s mine, he can’t have it.  He opened his mouth to yell, but flames spilled from his lips instead. The little boy went for his throat, pushing as hard as he could on his trachea. Billy gasped for fresh air, but the room was filling with black smoke and brimstone. Still the little boy that was Billy pressed down on his throat, firelight reflecting in his big, brown eyes.     

Billy awoke from the dream, panting and still unable to move. He sucked in air. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a tall, reddish-black figure fade into mist. When the panic cleared from his mind, he checked on Teddy, who still softly snoring. Nightmares were nothing knew to Billy. What was strange was how familiar the dream had been. It was a dream similar to one he had dreamt years before, back when the Young Avengers had just started, back when he and Teddy had only just started to know each other. He was at his birthday party, and in the dream he was eight or nine years old. The Scarlet Witch stood talking to another parent, and behind her stood Mephisto, demon-lord of Hell.    

Thirty minutes later, he still couldn’t fall back to sleep. He grabbed his laptop and began to pull up any information he could find on Mephisto. The fact that his birth was tied to the demon was already something he knew. The twins born to Wanda Maximoff and the Vision were fragments of the Mephisto made human, purified by love, and rendered immiscible with Mephisto’s whole when he tried to revert the infants back into himself. After that, somehow, the souls became Billy Kaplan and Tommy Shepherd, even though the timeline didn’t really line up. That was one of the mysteries Billy wanted to have answered. The internet wasn’t giving him anything he didn’t already know.     

“Billy, it’s like 5am.” Teddy murmured and rubbed his eyes.       

“Go back to sleep, T.”    

 “Why are you awake? You need to sleep too.“     

“I had a nightmare.”     

Teddy cleared his throat, took a sip of water, and sat up. “Tell me about your nightmare.“     

“It’s fine, really.”     

“I don’t know much about magic, but I’m your boyfriend. I want to be there for you, and you can’t keep shutting me out.“     

“Fine.” Billy told him what he remembered about the dream. He ended by describing the sensation of being choked and the shadowy figure that appeared when he opened his eyes.    

 Teddy looked concerned, but not frightened. “You had sleep paralysis.”    

 “What?”    

 “I’ve not had it, but I read about it in one of my mom’s books. You had textbook sleep paralysis.“   

  Billy shook his head, and started to protest, but Teddy interrupted him with the list of symptoms.     

“Feelings of pressure on your chest and inability to breath, tingling sensations, inability to move, and even an evil shadowy figure in the corner of your eye. Textbook sleep paralysis.”     

Teddy bent over and kissed his forehead. “You’re an incredible mage, but you’re also human. Try not to fall asleep on your back.“    

Billy huffed and buried his head in his pillow. He turned and grinned.     

“You’re incredible and I don’t deserve you.”     

“You’re a bit of a drama llama, but I love you too.” 

Teddy peeled off his shirt, revealing his thick muscular torso.    

 “Are we going to have sex now?“    

 “Ha, I’m going for a run. You’re welcome to join me.”     

Billy whimpered and grabbed for Teddy’s chest.     

“Run, and then sex?” Billy asked.     

“Sure, I’m glad the nightmare hasn’t affected you too much, or at least not your libido.“ 

To be continued

[writing-prompt-s]

It happened overnight. Anyone that fell asleep simply… exploded. An exhausted Humanity has been continually awake for months, now, as sleep-deprived scientists attempt to find a cure.

[iugesorbust]

It was night-shift hospital workers at the Auckland medical center that alerted the world to their new reality. With shaky hands, they telephoned Sydney, and even in the tearful few minutes it took to convey the message, the sounds of wet popping could be heard beginning on the other end.  It’s astonishing so many were able to survive the first night. The Information Age has many burdens, but mass messages at any other point in time could not have spread across the globe so quickly. Every newspaper, every message board, every government alert system was set to give a single message: “Do not sleep.” 

Of course, the very young were lost. Photos of mothers in Tokyo and Beijing running into the streets, faces caked with blood and tears, made it online fast enough for mothers in Delhi, Islamabad, Moscow, and Jerusalem to have an hour to say goodbye.  The elderly, sick, and narcoleptic had advance warning and the impossible decision of whether to fight or give in. Many found parents’ and grandparents' bedrooms empty, save for a long note.  For some, the change was a blessing. Given a choice of ways to go, the simple act of falling asleep was the most painless death they could imagine. Their families wept. Even if the threat of death did not loom, it would have been a sleepless night for most. 

  In the days and nights to come, the population of the world continued to fall. Human relationships shattered with the emotional strain of sleeplessness. Many said goodbye to the ones they loved, then walked into the nearest patch of trees or tall grass or cave. Blood splattered and seeped into earth at the sites of these impromptu graves. 

The survivors lingered like ghosts. Caffeine pills were traded like precious metal, and in effect, they were the only material precious enough to matter still. Everywhere, a cacophony of loud music and alarms filled the air. Some found refuge in bodies of water, the compulsions of the lungs to breathe powerful enough to overcome the desire to sleep, at least for a while. 

In medical labs, surviving biologists of every variant bickered with each other. The neurologists saw the act of sleeping as starting in the brain, a rush of hormones that switched the activities of a wakeful mind to a sleeping mind. It was in this process that the cure would be found, they insisted. But what makes them explode, badgered the cardiologists, who pointed out that it appeared to be a sudden spike in blood pressure that was the mechanism of death. The medical examiners of Oceania and East Asia had ruled out a viral or bacterial agents in the first few hours of this apocalypse, and passed their findings west with the rising sun.

 It was nearly two months before a cure was found. Humanity remained only in a few pockets, mostly cities, where jittery and red-eyed half-beast half-men laughed and cried at their figments of delirium.  Scientists, clear eyed and calm walked through the streets like angels in hell. With a smile and a needle, they delivered Morpheus’s gift, the salve of each day’s life, sleep. Humanity would awake to a new day.

[iugesorbust]

The bad weather of two weeks ago seems to have passed, so Rosetta actually got to fly in the few days. The PIPERS (Polynyas, Ice Production, and seasonal Evolution on the Ross ice Shelf) project, out of University of Austin, Texas had been patiently waiting most of the time we were in Antarctica for a couple of flights to survey sea ice on the margin of the ice shelf. With them was a high school teacher from Michigan, who was part of the PolarTrec program. PolarTrec sends school teachers to the Arctic and Antarctic to participate in polar research projects. You can check out their blog here: http://geotracerkitchen.org/pipers/

The sea ice at the margin was breathtakingly beautiful. It was like a stained glass, mosaic sculpture, with bright blue water and white ice forming patterns and three-dimensional forms at the same time. Tabular icebergs,  jutted out like angular, minimalist white buildings from the white expanse; fine ice crystals formed what has been called “dragon-scale” sea ice; and pancake ice under a grey sky looked like the definition of desolation. Then we flew into a layer of clouds, and the view outside of the window became a lot less interesting. The flight was a bit turbulent, and the combination of the shaking plane and the grey nothingness outside gave me a bad headache. I wrapped my scarf around my head and took a nap.

Side-note: Zero stars to the Jewish science-fiction anthology Wandering Stars. Most of the stories can be summarized by the sentence, “My daughter is not marrying a space alien, even if he’s Jewish.” I was expecting stories about what it meant to be Jewish as technology changes what it means to be human in the universe. Instead it was arguing over whether aliens can convert to Judaism, and if they can then marry our daughters. It was embarrassing and very disappointing compared to science fiction anthologies like So Long Been Dreaming: Post-Colonial Science Fiction. I’ll need to check out People of the Book, which I’ve heard is better.

The rest of the week was spent working. It was nice to actually be able to do the job I was meant to be doing down here: quality checking radar data. Bad weather knocked out a couple days that we could have flown before Thanksgiving, but that just gave me, Chloe and Devin an opportunity to do a photoshoot.

Thanksgiving in the US came and went without too much fanfare in McMurdo Station — our Thanksgiving celebrations were over the weekend. I was of course sad to be missing another Thanksgiving with my family and boyfriend, but I was glad to hear that both Thanksgiving events went well. I asked both to print out and tape the above picture to a chair, but I don’t think that happened at either event.

Friday morning I finally got the chance to go to the New Zealand base a mile away, Scott Base. All of its buildings are bright green and connected via underground tunnels. It has the feeling of a space station made homier with wooden paneling and paintings. The bar was nice, but what I was really excited for was the shop, which I had heard about for a long time from people who had been here before. The Kiwis put a lot of effort into making Antarctic souvenirs, and apparently a nontrivial amount of their station’s income comes from Americans buying things at the store. I’m glad I was able to fund New Zealand polar science and get some great souvenirs!

Saturday, McMurdo’s Thanksgiving Day, was of course split into two for me, a day-sleeper. I stayed up late to watch the Turkey Trot, the annual, costumed 5k race around McMurdo. Almost all the Rosettans competed and our very own Chloe Gustafson won first place, the first woman to ever win. She had been practicing running outside all this past month. It was a warm day for Antarctica, which was very lucky.

I woke up six hours later for the big Thanksgiving meal. I threw on my nicest clothes and stumbled into the galley for a very large breakfast with turkey, stuffing, roasted vegetables, sweet potatoes, pie, wine and beer. The galley was decorated with paper turkeys, and the food was delicious.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

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We relaxed and discussed British dating shows until late into the night/ late morning. We also tried to stage a Rosetta “Last Supper,” I’m not sure how the ultimately turned out.

The other highlight of the week: we went out to see the seals twice. Boopy, the baby seal, has gotten pretty big and is beginning to lose its baby fur. The mother is now hunting and replenishing her fat reserves in a nearby swimming hole, we believe. I got video of Boopy and the mother talking to each other. Seal pup cries are very similar to “maaaah!”

Yesterday, there was a third seal, a very large black seal, that Boopy wanted to go over to. The seal in the hole (mother seal?) poked her head out, saw Boopy going to the other seal, and yanked on its tail with her mouth. Boopy is very nearly ready to start swimming. It stuck its head into the water in the hole curiously, got bored, wiggled a couple feet, and stuck its head into a snowdrift. The other larger seal seems to being giving both the mother and baby a good distance. It eventually oozed its way to an area a little away from the two.

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The weather seems to be warming. McMurdo’s roads, snow-covered since I came here, are beginning to melt and become muddy. In this transition period, they are often just a solid slick layer of ice. The mountainsides are becoming blackish brown as well. There’s only two weeks left before I end this adventure, time enough for a few more survey flights and hikes. 

Thanksgiving Traditions of the Antarctic The bad weather of two weeks ago seems to have passed, so Rosetta actually got to fly in the few days.

[iugesorbust]

This entire past week has been a sort of forced vacation. Snow days in Antarctica, isn’t that funny? Antarctica with snow is beautiful, but it halts everything for days on end. I’m not sure what will happen with our project, but whatever data we get will be what we will work with. I can’t complain too much, I’ve gotten a chance to relax, watch movies, go hiking, write fiction, and slowly eat in the galley. A weather day in Antarctica for night-shifters is very quiet. I won’t bore you readers with the day by day play of every sleepy day spent staring at a TV screen. It’s hard to keep the past week straight in my head, so I’ll just give some glimpses of the things that happened this past week.

I visited the Observatory Tube again. No seals, but I saw fish, jellyfish, and small gelatinous animals that look like a very tiny jelly moths, called sea angels. While we waited for the other members of our group to finish with the Ob Tube, Chloe taught us a silly dance that has now spread to the rest of the Rosetta team.

Last Tuesday, I climbed up Observatory Hill for a second time, with the rest of the night-shifters. I took some great panoramic shots, and did our silly dance, but on the way down, I tore a small hole in my snowpants.

By Thursday, snow began to fall in earnest. Antarctica is a polar desert, but you wouldn’t know that from the amount of snow that fell. It was very pretty, and not too cold, so I did the obvious thing and had a snowy day photoshoot with my hooded cape that I brought. I’m really with how the photos turned out. Chloe took the first batch and then I used the timer function to take the others. I’m really happy with how the photos turned out, and don’t care if I looked silly taking them.

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Friday, the snow had stopped falling, so I decided to go up the Hut Point Ridge trail. It’s the plateau that looks opposite Observatory Hill. If it wasn’t clear from the pictures, McMurdo Station sits in a small valley surrounded by mountains on three sides and the frozen ocean on the fourth. Taking the ridge trail up from Discovery Hut takes you past Our Lady of the Snows and up to the thin ridge of the mountain. Continuing onwards, the ridge widens to a flat plateau. To my left, the ice-covered strait between Ross Island and the mainland, Victoria Land specifically. In front of me, the plateau eventually leads to a summit where the black geodesic sphere of an antenna rests. On the right, the plateau continues, and there are several antenna arrays in the snow-covered step above McMurdo Station. Beyond that, Observatory Hill and further out, Mt. Erebus.

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Following the trail was challenging, but not impossible for most of the way. I could follow a slightly depressed ribbon of ground, and footsteps where there was snow as my path, but once I ventured down into the flat snowy expanse, I lost the path. The fresh snow had covered the route and the marker flags seemed to just stop. I wasn’t in danger, but I did run the risk of accidentally going into Arrival Heights, an Antarctic Specially Protected Area that was very nearby. I stood knee deep in snow, paralyzed with indecision and the fear that I had already broken the Antarctic Treaty. Very carefully, I spun around and walked in my footsteps back to the last stretch of path I knew and walked back down the way I came. Hopefully there isn’t an Antarctic warrant out for my deportation.

That “evening” (Saturday morning) was the Pirates vs. Ninjas day bar. Costumes needed to be prepared. After an after-hike meal, I hung out in the Craft Room with Chloe and Devin. Devin is an excellent sewer, and also identical to an affectionate tomcat in look and behavior. He made an eyepatch for me from scraps in the Craft Room, and I took another scrap for a sash belt. Two women from the cargo team prepared ninja stars and a cutlass from cardboard.

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We lost a lot of good men

The Pirates vs. Ninjas event was held in Southern Exposure. Pirates handily won, with only five ninjas attending out of the two dozen attendants. There were some pretty impressive costumes. One guy attached a peg to his knee and from the front looked just like a peg-legged pirate.  We drank and sang pirate songs (there are a lot of pirate songs, evidently). We did more of the silly dance, which we dubbed the Rosetta dance.

On the way back from day bar, I saw a large white, lumpy garbage bag just sitting in front of the dorm building. I stared at it. Then I realized it was staring back. I let out a high-pitch scream. It was a skua bird, sitting like a little blob, unperturbed by my yell or the human foot traffic around it. I chuckled to myself and went to sleep.

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Just keep your eyes on me

That’s basically it. I’m leaving out a number of bar conversations, mindless web surfing, and  watching all of Season 1 of Stranger Things. In only a few days, I can report back about Thanksgiving in McMurdo.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, everyone!

Antarctic Pirates This entire past week has been a sort of forced vacation. Snow days in Antarctica, isn’t that funny?

[iugesorbust]

When I last left off, the weather had worsened to a Condition 2: low temperatures, high wind, low visibility, monitored traffic. We out on Willy Field were definitely seeing all these things. Shannon, the night manager of the air field, poked her head in and told us that they were evacuating the air field in the next hour. We packed up our things and did our best to seal up the tent to prevent more snow from blowing in. I taped up the back door with masking tape and covered the lower crack with foam. Hoping nothing would happen after we left, we bid the tent goodbye.

Dave, Caitlin, and I would be driving behind one of the larger Delta trucks in a caravan back to McMurdo Station. But first, they needed to contact and shuttle everyone on Willy Field to the air field’s galley. Shannon was driving around in a rugged golf-cart vehicle called a ‘mule’ and got stuck in one of the snow drifts that had formed in the last hour. Dave carefully opened our car door, and went out to push. When that didn’t work, they attached a chain from the front of the mule to the back of our pickup truck. Dave got in and not so slowly advanced. Shannon began waving her hands. Dave stopped, and the mule hit the back of the truck. Everyone was ok, but – it seemed like it was a tough day for Shannon. We watched everyone pile into the back of the Delta truck, effectively a big-wheel truck with an unheated people trailer. The Delta pulled away and we followed after.

Everything was white nothingness outside of a ten foot radius. The sea ice that we stood on, the sky, the snow, all disappeared. The world had shrunk to two vehicles and the rhythmic passage of red flags on our right that appeared and disappeared into whiteness. After a time – the passage of individual minutes was unfelt in this void-space – the Delta turned to the right, passed the line of flags, and stopped. Dave slowed, but fearing getting stuck, we passed the Delta and continued on without it. A good decision in hindsight. The Delta driver had mistakenly thought he was too far over and left the groomed road. They were stuck in a snowdrift for two hours until they were able to finally remove themselves, and all of the passengers had to sit in the cold metal trailer. So then our truck was the only object in the world, besides the line of flags. Looking forward, there was only featureless white. Looking up, there was clear blue sky. The storm was localized to only up to about ten feet off the ground, and above that was clear. Blue sky above, red flags to the right, white everywhere else. It felt like the moments after you fall off the screen in a video game: A pre-rendered sky and void in all directions, forever. Only A.the passage of flags from the front to the back gave a sense of motion or time.

After some indeterminable amount of time, we turned onto the gravel road and began to rise ,above the storm. We were treated with a beautiful vista, the sun setting between a layer of storm below and a layer of clouds above, with mountains peeking through into the golden light. It was alien and surreal, especially after our passage through the void. We regained our composure over hot chocolate.

Afterwards, my friend Monk and I went for a hike up to wear we saw the baby seal before, and then up even further to see frozen lakes and Our Lady of the Snows, a madonna shrine up on the hillside overlooking McMurdo. There’s something magnificently human in a religious shrine at the very edge of civilization.

The following day, the miraculous happened: we were able to fly in a LC-130! I sat in the cockpit for the entire trip and thoroughly enjoyed myself taking pictures of the Trans-Antarctic Mountains and the dynamic surface of the ice shelf. The low sun cast everything in warm pastels, and again I had the sense of being on an alien gas giant planet. The flight crew was very nice — maybe too nice. I learned later that they usually only have people in the cockpit for take off, but they were too polite to ask me to leave. Whoops. It was a seven hour flight, so once we were just slowly flying over featureless white ice shelves, I read and finished Lacuna by A.M Daily, a debut sci-fi novel set in a cyberpunk dystopia, and continued my anthology of Jack Vance short stories, considered by many to be the father of Dying Earth distant sci-fi. I had no contact at all with the science we were doing on the flight, but I learned later it did pretty well.

The “day” after became our day off. I went out to Gallagher’s, one of the two bars for live music and alcohol in my morning. I drank too much and spent the rest of the day paying for my misjudgment.

The start of this week has been fairly slow. Today is another day off due to weather, so I got to sleep in, which I cherished greatly. There’s a chance I could fly again tomorrow Tuesday, but everything is weather dependent.

Into the Bright Void When I last left off, the weather had worsened to a Condition 2: low temperatures, high wind, low visibility, monitored traffic.

[iugesorbust]

I’m alive, I’m doing fine. I’m sorry I haven’t posted for a few days. Every day it seems like nothing special happens beyond work, eating, and sleeping, but then I looked back and realized that a few things worth remarking on have happened.

Our daily schedule when we fly is not the easiest, especially for those who need to make decisions about our daily activities.  Every day, from 4 to 4:30 AM, our chief scientist calls to check to see if that morning’s flight is going ahead, then she checks in with the night shift at the end of their shift for updates on instrument functioning. At 5 am, she and the day flight engineer have a meeting with the weather operations and flight operation to go over the day’s flight plan considering the weather forecast.  Meanwhile, the gravity instrument operators, affectionately called the “graviteers,” go down to the airfield with the load-masters to oversee the loading of the gravimeter into the plane. Collecting data on minuscule changes to gravity requires that we know exactly where in the plane the instruments sit to calculate accelerations. However, the gravimeters must also be kept warm at all times to remain in peak functionality. As a result, the gravimeters must be loaded and surveyed at the beginning of every day, and unless the next flight is soon after, the gravimeters must be then unloaded at the end of the day. The plane is readied for take-off with a systems check and the flight crew and our project’s flight engineers prepare for flying.

The non-flight members of our team arrive to Williams Airfield soon after from McMurdo.

Each shift has an archivist, someone who copies the data from the various digital storage units that were on the plane and then carefully transported back to the tent. That data is transferred to the central computer, as well as to two backup hard drives. At the end of the shift, there are nine hard drives and two USB sticks filled with data. The archivist also selects three to four five-minute segments of data for quality control, which we call “QCing”. The other QCers and I look through the segments from every data set for breaks in the data. My day is the reverse of this, subtract an hour: wake up at 4:30pm to take the 5pm shuttle, crossover meeting at 5:30pm on the airfield, work at QCing all day in a cold tent, come back to McMurdo at 4:30am, eat dinner, go to sleep at 8am to sleep for eight hours.

It is well established that night shift is unfair. In a perfect world, the lives of day shift and night shift would be identical, polar day turning seamlessly into a midsummer, darkless night, and McMurdo Station, operating on a twenty-four hour schedule, would provide whatever comforts it can to both day workers and night-workers equally. But the world is imperfect and unfair, and night shift is a circus-mirror reflection of the day. In terms of weather, night still manages to be windier and colder than day. Our counterparts eat breakfast and dinner at the main station’s galley, where there is a wide selection of foods and drinks. We eat breakfast and lunch at the Willy Field galley, where they ran out of hot water. Food selection is very small, things run out very quickly, and our breakfast selection is the dinner selection for everyone else. Our dinner is at the main galley, but you don’t realize how sugary an American breakfast is until you eat pancakes and French toast for dinner several days in a row. Sorry friends and family, I am not going to want “breakfast for dinner” for at least a year. Due to the slight differences between our schedules, night shift needs to wake up earlier than day shift, and the fun activities that McMurdo has planned for leisure happen after we go to sleep or while we’re preparing to start our shifts. Many of the friends I had made at the station are now asleep as I’m awake, only there for a quick wave in the hall as our days overlap. Going back to the changes in weather, in addition to us shivering in a colder tent all day, the climatic differences have meant that day shift has been able to fly nearly every day, enjoying flying over the ice shelf in a LC-130, while night shift’s flights have been cancelled due to weather. We need to check the quality of the day flights, so the only situation, miraculous in its improbability,  in which I get to fly would be if the day flight is cancelled due to weather but the colder, windier night flight is not.

I had sat down to write this blog post on Sunday, my day off, but I was just overcome with such sense of envy, I couldn’t think or write about anything else. I could taste the bitterness in my mouth. Here I was in Antarctica, the place I had dreamt of, and all I felt was painful coveting for someone else’s Antarctica. Shakespeare’s Macbeth came to mind. I stood in the one-half world of night, having thoughts of regicide, or at the very least a lot of frustration with my self-pity.

Despite my busy schedule, I have managed to do quite a bit outside of work.

Last Saturday, I went to the Hawaiian-themed Day Bar at Southern Exposure, one of the three bars here. The other are Gallagher’s and The Coffee House. Each one draws a different crowd. Southern Exposure is the dive bar. For Hawaii Night, I went over in a sleeveless tee, shorts worn over thermal underwear, and threw my parka over all of it. The inside of the bar looks identical to nearly every other bar in the world, and this one happened to hold about two dozen people, a few of them in an odd mishmash of Hawaiian print shirts and thermal clothes. I got a rum and coke, the most tropical drink I could order.  I was the only grantee, science staff, everyone else was support staff. Mostly the night-shift cargo workers, night-shift galley, and night-shift shuttles, some of whom I already knew. One of my fellow drinkers was Shuttle Nathan (I always think of people by their radio call signs), a jovial man with the thickest Tennessean accent I have ever heard. He would later tell me stories about a pig he knew named “Lord Bubbles of the Night” which was amazing to hear him say.

A few days ago, I tried out the skate-skis I rented for the first time. I figured since I knew how to ice skate and I knew how to ski, it would be natural for me to skate ski. I put on my skis and took a step. Fell on my butt. Tried to get up, and fell on my butt. Meanwhile the rest of night shift was getting into the truck to go to lunch. Dave helped me up and I waddled to the side of the rode to let them pass. They drove off, wishing me luck. I took a few steps, thought that I had finally got it, then I fell on my butt. I got up. And fell. It was very cold, cold enough that my head was beginning to ache. I gave up soon after and walked the rest of the way to the Willy Field galley.

Sunday’s Boopy

Four days later

On my day off, I saw a newborn seal lying beside its mother below Vincent’s Cross near Discovery Hut. That was incredibly special and heartwarming, and it made the raw frustration I had felt earlier in the day seem insignificant when watching this little creature shiver against its mother. I named the baby seal Boopy.  Skuas were nearby, hungrily eyeing the bloody afterbirth only a few feet away from the mother and child. We felt very lucky to be among the first to discover these two, which helped boost my ego. That evening, McMurdo was treated to some raw footage from the upcoming BBC documentary, “Seven Worlds,” that focuses on the differences between each of the continents. We also watched the first episode of Blue Planet 2, not yet released in the US.

After work on Tuesday, I climbed up Observation Hill, the large hill that overlooks McMurdo. At the top is another memorial cross. Climbing up the narrow, snow covered path was a workout. As you get higher, the path seems to get steeper and more slippery, and at times I needed to go down to my hands for balance. As I climbed, the ground shrank below me. I thought about giving up and climbing down several times, but I kept putting one foot in front of the other. Reaching the summit became a sort of personal proof of belonging. If I made it to the top, then I would truly be an Antarctic explorer. It seemed like it took a long time to climb up, but I was recording a time-lapse on my camera strapped to my backpack set for a photo every twenty seconds, and there were only a handful of photos. I reached the summit, and there was a lot of firm rock to rest on. Another man, Paul, was there taking photos, and he was kind enough to take my picture. I felt so proud of myself for making it to the top of Ob Hill. Standing still on the windy peak quickly cooled me off, and I started to decide. Going down was much faster than going up, mostly because on the snowy parts I butt-sledded. I had a time-lapse video going again on the way down, and it only took like ten photos, which would mean it only took me three minutes to get down.

Yesterday, I saw that the Observatory Tube was open. It’s a metal tube that ends in a glass box that’s driven through the sea ice near the station. It only open during periods when the ice is thick enough, so only for a few months a year. Beth, Chloe, Caitlin and I were only the second group to go down to it this year. Walking out onto the ice shelf is always strange, transitioning from solid ground to a thin crust of ice above the ocean. Descending down a thin metal tube though that crust makes it only stranger. Only one person is allowed down at a time, and I was the first one down. I held an air quality meter and shouted out numbers for the people above to record. Looking through the glass, the blue water was somewhat murky. Below on the black sea floor where small patches of white. Scientific equipment was pinned to some rocks a few feet away.

Above, the bottom of the sea ice was mossy green, filled with life. I heard clicking and whistling outside — seals coming to see who was making bright flashes of light. The person who went down after me, Chloe, actually saw a seal swim up close to the tube. She’s very lucky with seals.

  Today, the weather shifted from clear and sunny to Condition 2, high winds, low visibility, only building to building traffic allowed, while we’re in the tent. But the tent is warm and I have very little I need to do. Over breakfast, one of the day shifters was saying how jealous they were of night shift, able to go out and see all these things with no crowds. Our internet is faster, we get to become close to cargo and shuttles, and we get to see the sun touch the horizon and turn the snow golden. Maybe night shift isn’t so bad at all.

My access to internet is slightly less sporadic now. With any luck, I can update the blog a little more frequently than once a week. 

Update: We’re being evacuated from Willy Field. More to come…

Over the One Half World I’m alive, I’m doing fine. I’m sorry I haven’t posted for a few days. Every day it seems like nothing special happens beyond work, eating, and sleeping, but then I looked back and realized that a few things worth remarking on have happened.