I have seen you struggle from afar for a long time. I know you are sad, with the kind of sadness that eats into your psyche and erodes it, that the rust of what was falls away from you in fine, brittle pieces. I know what it is, that sadness. So because of this, IContinue reading “Dear Prudence,”
Author Archives: Katie Botkin
Happy Christmas holidays
Christmas for our family lasts a few days. Christmas eve, Christmas day, Christmas II, wherein we often end up getting things for ourselves on sale, and then Isaiah’s birthday. His claim is that we celebrate his birthday every year together because he’s the youngest, but the date is serendipitous. This year, my nieces were oldContinue reading “Happy Christmas holidays”
An expat in any country
One reason I love other cultures is the possibility that they will be more familiar than the one I’m currently living in. I grew up in a microculture, one with its own way of dressing and thinking, its own news services, textbooks, cultural heroes, way of speaking English. Since the moment I set foot inContinue reading “An expat in any country”
Psychopaths, testosterone, leadership, patriarchy
A few days ago, Doug Wilson pontificated that Doug Phillips, having fallen from grace and besmirched the name of patriarchy, had been led astray by his own “testosterone,” which men in leadership are apparently prone to do if they don’t watch themselves: “A man with lots of testosterone is in a position to start aContinue reading “Psychopaths, testosterone, leadership, patriarchy”
Back to Sandpoint
I arrived home to yellow and red leaves on the trees, and brown, crisp ones on the sidewalk. The air was cold; 40 degrees colder than it had been that morning in Newport Beach. I had been thinking on the airplane, as I tend to do to pass the hours in that buzzing, monotonous in-between,Continue reading “Back to Sandpoint”
Remembering Fiji
My last stop in California was Newport Beach to visit David, a writer I’d met in Fiji and asked for advice every so often since then, and his wife Jan. Their house was quiet and soothing, often open to the sunlight and the air, full of art and books. David turned out to be aContinue reading “Remembering Fiji”
SLO wine tasting
Ever since we were on a press trip in Fiji together, I’ve kept in touch with David Lansing, because he’s always full of good ideas and interesting stories. In this case, the good idea (and potential interesting story) involved him virtually introducing me to his daughter. I was going to be in her neck ofContinue reading “SLO wine tasting”
Raymond saves the day
It is rare but not unheard of for timber framers to make mistakes. As it turned out, for Collin Beggs’ massive Oregon barn project, mistakes were made. In the thousands of cuts needed for this project, a few were off, which was not discovered until the crew was laying out the timbers for the raising,Continue reading “Raymond saves the day”
Testing Lake Pend Oreille
Kelsey asked if I wanted to be her water-testing buddy today for Lake Pend Oreille Waterkeeper, and I said sure. So we took a boat out to Bottle Bay, where she tested the murkiness of the water and took samples from the depth at which her line disappeared (6.4 meters today, averaged out overContinue reading “Testing Lake Pend Oreille”
Lake Pend Oreille
There are two spots I particularly love on lake Pend Oreille. One is just past the Montana border as you drive west on Highway 200, and the lake opens before your eyes, stretching past marshes and open expanses to the mountains. The second is Mineral Point, where the water is clear and the beaches rocky.Continue reading “Lake Pend Oreille”
Botkin Creative 