The Last Word On Nothing | Bloom Where You’re Planted
On May Day, my brother and I used to sneak around our neighborhood with our mom,...
The Last Word On Nothing | Another Chapter in the Roadkill Chronicles
This past weekend, during a tracking course in California (spoiler: I did not ace the final...
The Last Word On Nothing | Guest Post: A Killer Whale by Any Other Name
Last month, scientists described two new species of killer whales, and the community of cetacean researchers...
The Last Word On Nothing | I wrote a eulogy
My father, Jim Fields, died unexpectedly in November at age 81, of a stroke. Last week...
The Last Word On Nothing | The Dream Camera
If you could record your dreams, would you ever be able to stop watching? That’s a...
The Last Word On Nothing | A New Age of Brightness
Last night I took a crowded elevator to the hundredth floor of a skyscraper in Manhattan....
The Last Word On Nothing | The obstetric dilemma
We attended our first childbirth preparation course last week, Pete and I. It was 2.5 hours...
The Last Word On Nothing | Earth at Night in Color
Did you see the stars come out during the eclipse? Did the colors change in a...
The Last Word On Nothing | Ode to the Brown-Headed Cowbird
I don’t know why this came out in “verse,” but here it is. I’m no poet,...
The Last Word On Nothing | Eclipse
Eclipse The earth moved to follow his smile, but she stood aside, let the planet pass....
The Last Word On Nothing | There Goes the Sun
In the week leading up to a rare total solar eclipse, we bring you a daily lineup...
The Last Word On Nothing | Why Am I Not There?
In the week leading up to a once-in-a-lifetime total solar eclipse, we bring you a daily lineup...
The Last Word On Nothing | A Toddler in Totality
In the week leading up to a rare total solar eclipse, we bring you a daily lineup...
The Last Word On Nothing | On the Path of Totality
In the week leading up to a total solar eclipse, we bring you a daily lineup of...
The Last Word On Nothing | Not Even Looking Up
In the week leading up to a rare total solar eclipse, we bring you a daily...
The Last Word On Nothing | Why the Last Eclipse Mattered and This One Will Too
In the week leading up to a once-in-a-lifetime total solar eclipse, we bring you a daily...
The Last Word On Nothing | The Weight of the Eclipse
In the week leading up to a rare total solar eclipse, we bring you a daily...
The Last Word On Nothing | Eclipse Week 2024
When the two minutes, forty seconds were over, each observer left her instrument, turned in silence...
The Last Word On Nothing | Time Will Tell
Even though it happened two weeks ago, the time change still feels like it has a...
The Last Word On Nothing | Lugworms? Why, Certainly!
[This post ran some years back, and I thought, hey, let’s revisit lugworms! I mean, is...
The Last Word On Nothing | In Praise of Minor Bulbs
This first ran on April 5, 2021. In the years since, the Wisley blues remain fine...
The Last Word On Nothing | On Winthrop Pond
This post originally appeared in March of 2023 All art is the original work of the...
The Last Word On Nothing | Peak Bloom, By Night
One of the great signs of spring in Washington, D.C., is the herds of middle schoolers...
The Last Word On Nothing | Redux: Vanishing Points
This essay originally appeared in 2012. If the artwork above looks familiar, the reason might be...
The Last Word On Nothing | Toward a theory of cuteness aggression
I want a dog. For a while now, my awareness of this has been getting louder....
The Last Word On Nothing | This Is Not a Snake, Though It Is Snake Shaped
Look at this worm!! Folks, I met this giant earthworm during a trip to a cloud...
The Last Word On Nothing | Science Poem: The Birds of Hyde Park
Long before I knew that science writing could be a job, I wrote science poems. A...
The Last Word On Nothing | Space Is Real
A defensive back playing for a Texas university football team recently said something unusual into a...
The Last Word On Nothing | The Queen’s Speech
This piece initially ran exactly a year ago, and it’s no coincidence that the Canadian Broadcasting...
The Last Word On Nothing | Amphorae
This post first appeared in March 2021. My longing for more spontaneous museum visits continues. A...
The Last Word On Nothing | Any Chance You Have Time to Read This Post?
*If you are home and not busy, would F. be able to get a Ziploc of...
The Last Word On Nothing | Snapshot: The Raccoons of Jewel Key
First light on Jewel Key found the tide out and the raccoons hungry. I followed one...
The Last Word On Nothing | Nobody Was Here
I don’t know how I managed to not know this for my whole life, but here...
The Last Word On Nothing | Lady of the Lake
this post originally published in June of 2022
The Last Word On Nothing | Birding – PUBLISHED, Finally
We, the People of LWON, write whatever the f*** we want. But on days when we...
The Last Word On Nothing | Sleep Talk with Me
My 4-year-old has developed a borderline unhealthy obsession with Star Wars over the past month or...
The Last Word On Nothing | Remnant of Eden
This post comes from 2015, which seems like lifetimes ago, and I don’t know what happened...
The Last Word On Nothing | Well THAT Smells Warm
God damn it, advertising can be powerful. I mean, not that I would ever buy some...
The Last Word On Nothing | Kate Versus the Meteorite
It came as a surprise, a gift from no one in particular: a blush-pink postcard tucked...
The Last Word On Nothing | Redux: I Saw Them Standing There
It was 60 years ago today that the Beatles first appeared on “The Ed Sullivan Show.”...
The Last Word On Nothing | N is for Norman, eaten by a lionness
This post originally appeared in March 2012. “It is with the deepest sorrow that I have...
The Last Word On Nothing | Getting Gravid
This week we had our 22-week ultrasound, the detailed scan for all the things no one wants...
The Last Word On Nothing | Stuck In the Middle With Oystercatchers and You
We often celebrate the beginnings of things, and the ends of things, but what about the...
The Last Word On Nothing | A Sevenmile Stream Story
Years ago, Carol Evans, then a Bureau of Land Management biologist in northeastern Nevada, told me...
The Last Word On Nothing | Under the Kitchen Table is One Option
I have had occasion to mention January before, once with hard eyes and grit and once...
The Last Word On Nothing | The moon in my skin
Life has fallen so quiet latelythatlight takes on the quality of soundwhen there is none. I...
The Last Word On Nothing | Free the Tree
One Sunday in November, my boyfriend and I were arriving back at his house at noon...
The Last Word On Nothing | Chasing the northern lights
I can’t remember why I decided I needed to see the northern lights again. Maybe it...
The Last Word On Nothing | The internet and the overmind
When the internet was young, David Bowie was asked by a skeptical journalist whether it would...
