Dec 11

“we see here that you had study abroad in South Korea
This is a voluntary interview; you can leave whenever you’d like
This date is different from what you said”
Kraftwerk playing in the Los Alamos Starbucks

“Is it just for memorabilia? You don’t intend to use it ever again?
If any government entity saw it, they would say um nice try
and you said that you got it so late you didn’t use it at all?
You probably shouldn’t use this photograph ever again”

Dec 12

went on a walk
40 degrees, it’s supposed to snow tomorrow. The trail I run is all ice and mud so I had to turn around.
I jogged through town and talked to Matt.
Matt asks if I go out when it snows, I say no. He says
“I think I would be afraid of the snow.”
I say “I don’t really know what to do with the snow” because I’ve never really lived with it. Snow frightens me the way the ocean frightens me. It’s overwhelming.
He says the ocean is more of a real threat though. I say snow gets on my eyelashes and in my eyes. He says the ocean is a whole other world, and I say a world that you can’t see!
Matt says that if anyone hates us it’s all the creatures who live in the ocean. I say I believe, more than anything, in nature’s ambivalence.
I spent about an hour making photographs.

Dec 14

“What’s a Quark?”
“It’s Europe’s oldest cheese
Austrians eat it with a spoon
They spread it on buttered bread

I should know; I lived there for seven years
You know Americans don’t even need a visa
I went there for a week but stayed years
it was mostly for spiritual reasons

I fell in with this theosophical group
The guy – he was very Italian – they had built
a time machine. The women cried when we got out of it
I just had an incredible headache”

“Why did you come back to the United States?”

“There was a woman…” 

Dec 15

“Its sparkling mass
Is hollow matter,
Can quickly shatter
Like shiny glass”

Dec 17

“Sorry you had to come twice.
people will take the job and say
“but I don’t want to work the holiday”
and then they’ll quit

You wear so many hats doing something like this.
It’s not like before. No one is going to shoot at me!
I didn’t want to be pregnant in (redacted). I thought
this town needs a dedicated pet food store”

Dec 28

Last night I watched this frustrating
cartoon called when the wind blows

About this ignorant elderly British
couple who had an atomic bomb fall
near enough to destroy their house
but not immediately kill them

And so I googled “how does
Hiroshima look now”

And then went down a rabbit hole
on tulpas and how the guy who
started JPL conjured demons for
his rocket science

So I fell asleep all scared and jumpy

“Sounds educational but anxiety
inducing
I too have googled nuclear war at
1am”

Jan 13
TW: Annular Eclipse
33" snow in Tijeras over the past few weeks. 
These are photographs of the annular eclipse that happened a few months ago. Through local Indigenous knowledge I have been told that it is in poor taste to show images of an eclipse because it is a private matter between the sun and the moon.
I share these images with some embarrassment.

Jan 31
"It's not enough! That isn't enough birdseed!"

"They don't know that. This is the kind they like.
...Living in Him and through him. Do you get that?
I'm living like Christ now"

"When are you coming home?!"

Feb 24

I spoke with Jenny yesterday. 134" of snow, she showed me on her laptop. She says Freddy was running around on the roof.
I told her about the 33".

Feb 28
"You two look great. Are you headed anywhere important dressed like that?"
"We are on our way to Bandelier"

Mar 16
Winter weather warning in the Jemez.
I saw a third of a deer in an empty soccer field Tuesday before it started snowing. Ron says something dragged it down there. 

Mar 20
"It's so good that you have a hill behind your house"
"Is it? Is it? Hills have deer"
"My grandma says when I'm out there I have to be careful because of the mountain lions"
"How would you be careful of them?"
"We have coyotes too."
"Do they make noises at sunset?"
"No. We never hear them"

April 8

“I got you chocolate whipped cream. They had regular but I thought why not. Hope that’s ok”

“It’s the right choice”

“Ok. Great!”

“You won’t believe who is parked next to us.”

“No way we know someone here. Someone you know or I know?”

“They’re from Los Alamos. Two guys.”

“No way.”

April 12

“You need to know about it the same way we all need to learn about the Tulsa fires. What happens when we don’t know about that? My friend couldn’t watch The Handmaid’s Tale. And look where we are now.”

“I too am afraid of forced birth.”

“Right. So the reason I haven’t watched the thing is the audio. Nolan preferences the action audio so it's impossible to hear the dialogue. It’s ego!”

“I hear it’s all about how much Oppenheimer fucked. I hate thinking about that.”

“Yeah.”

May 22
"I was in Los Alamos yesterday. There was a car wreck at the junction, you know, down before the kind of snake road up there. The snaking road. And cars were backed up, look at this picture."

Backed up all the way to the top.

"There is a truck route you know. My partner takes it in his old car because he is afraid the car will break down on the one lane with no shoulder."

"yeah but that too connects with the snake road. We were stuck."

At four (I say I drove during a lightning storm around 8:30, no traffic then)

"But you can go the back way like the Puye Rocks way but it is closed, you know? Otherwise you have to drive down to Albuquerque and take the Zuni way through the pueblos."

"Wait, what? There’s a back way? It’s two hours down and at least two hours around!"

"You know what they say. It’s better to be moving than to wait and stay still."

July 4th

I have a - I stop breathing at night

Scared the shit out of my wife

So I’d be in bed - (choking sounds)

You know? Choking and trying to catch my breath and trying to kick the blanket off me to sit up.

Ha! And then my wife comes round the side of the bed trying to wake me up.

So this nurse - she was the head person - a respiratory… res’pitory therapist… department.

She gave me this flier and told me to watch this show and I watched it

And everything they talk about is like true!

You know?

So I uh… watched it. I watched it. It’s uh… really good. You should watch it!

It’s an hour. And it’s about wearing - taking off your shoes and walking. Walking in the grass or - wherever but grass is beautiful and… soft and everything. It… it really talks about how it travels through your foot. From the earth and all that. I’m not high on the earth and all that! I can say that right now! Ha ha ha!

July 7th

"I do this - like, it's something to do. I used to fix cars years ago. I got a great deal on it from a guy who owns the other apartment over... I forget where. You know, you’ve inspired me, I really should start - somehow with the kids - volunteering -”

“I mean, I think you do good work. The lab means a lot to many of my students. It’s like a - a sense of hope for the future. Many have internships and I think it keeps them focused.”

“I’m not a millionaire or anything. I help my - if I get any money I give it to my daughters or-“

“I don’t see you driving a Tesla, M____. I don’t think you’re a spendthrift!”

“Yeah. Ha! Ha! If we got hit by an EM blast I could still start this thing - electric ignition!”

“Ha! God.”

July 14

“So… spies.

The Manhattan Project was a war of information. And the workers who came here, they signed the Espionage Act. So, Ruth Marshak wrote that she didn’t know what this was all about even though she was living with a physicist. So that secrecy was cutting right through their dinner table. But! I showed you that picture earlier… if I could find it again… of Klaus Fuchs. A man who signed the Espionage Act but definitely did not hold to it. Have you heard of him? Before? I think he may be the most damaging atomic spy ever, but there’s no ranking body”

Oct 9
“I met this woman and she was an asthmatic. And she was like on several medications. And she said that she started going to the salt cave like once every six weeks and she was just down to nothing but a rescue inhaler. And she said ‘you feel happy!” This, this incredible feeling. And I went and I took two friends with me, and it was like 35-40 dollars for an hour and um, I think we, you know, and look it up! You can’t believe it - so you go to this strip mall, it’s on second street off of Cerrillos, go down Cerrillos turn left, and it’s next to a bakery, and, and you go inside there - wear your socks - and don’t bring electronics, because they’ll be encrusted. Corroded by the salt. You don’t need it anyways. Awesome. I didn’t even tell you, for about, all three of us, for the next three weeks, I swear I feel happy for no reason at all. Like you just feel joyful. I was breathing better, everybody felt like so good! It was lovely”

Oct 14

“Um... what I would be most concerned about is... your particular interest that there is a racially-dictated difference in color perception, which I think has been disproven for, like, about a hundred years, and is popularly... if at all discussed in contemporary times, tied into eugenics”

-“So this thing that I’m, I stumbled upon where... just, color chart...-“

-“I’d like to see the peer-reviewed evidence for that study-“

-“so you, you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re saying that that is eugenics?”

“It’s pseudoscience rooted in racism. Sorry to say. Yeah.”

Oct 19

I couldn’t hike up the regular trail because mud was getting stuck to my boots, so I walked up an arroyo that had followed volcanic rock. There were small pools and streams all the way up, and there was a very thin layer of snow on top of the hill I hiked yesterday during the red flag warning.

Today I have been reading Frankenstein.

Oct 24

I am not curious as to why I am fascinated by toxicity.

I have resisted interrogating my desires for fear of losing them.

I imagine tiny antique particles of the earliest plutonium refined by humans entering my lungs when I walk through the canyon. A mosquito bit me near a pool of stagnant water below the Nature Center. I call Ron and ask if I should worry about the bite and he says no way. I scratch and wonder if it would be worse if I got any dirt in contact with broken skin. My cat sniffs my wet boots. I wash my hands and imagine there is nothing to worry about.

Ron bought snow shoes to share but he says this winter is supposed to be warm and dry.

Nov 8
“So you don’t have a radiation pen, but you’re gonna get one soon?”

“Yeah! They told me when I start… shadowing. I do have to take a three day course or something. With, and h, I forgot his name but the guy who gave us a tour or whatever. Well, the professor, he was a professor here actually.”

“Oh, and he works… at the lab?”

“He stopped working at the lab actually. He said I have to take a three day course and after that I get my pen. But literally, when we went into that little contamination box it was crazy! I was standing there, all…”

“What’s it like?”

“It’s like crazy. It’s like…”

“Are there clowns? Do you see colors? (Laughter)”

“(Annoyed) yes, I’ve seen colors. They’re like…”

“(Laughter) can you see the radiation?”

“I mean, they tell us we could smell it”

Apr 29 

“Are you looking for the owl? I can show you where.”

“Yes.”

“It’s over here”

…

“Since I have you here, can I make your portrait?”

“What do you mean, portrait?”

“Take your picture real quick”

“Oh, sure! Do you want - what - smiling? Or?”

“Anything you like, smiling if you want. For my purposes, what I look for is ‘dead inside’”

“Oh! We work for the government so we know how to do that!”

Apr 30

I couldn’t teach so I went home, and I couldn’t be at home so I started walking. I hiked down to the canyon below the canyon.
Meg said the pilot swerved to avoid hitting a dog on the runway.

May 5

“We're Downwinders from Los Alamos. From the early days of… when they started testing their ammo. Their radiated materials and whatnot. It has been there.

Oppenheimer died with a lot of blisters on his body. Well, I was directing the Four Pueblos here in the city, in Northern New Mexico. Jemez Pueblo went on a community hunt. They brought down an elk and it was full of blisters.

So they, the warriors that went out there, the brave young men that went out there to do the, the community hunt, went back, brought one of their medicine people. And he told them, don't touch it! Just leave it there.”

June 1

You go out and find a spot. And once it’s done you can’t ever go back to that place again. And then… something comes. And they look at me and they’re like “alright”.

But it’s only happened a couple times, so this is like the third time.

But whenever you see that we have something that - let us know.

I wanted it. But I touched it and it’s like freaking me out.

…

So she was saying she just got a bad feeling from it?

Yes. That little fuzzy… thing. She’s going to bury it.

June 3

I just need a solid job. That's it. I thought I could find it here.

I thought it… look, my first year working here, I won fucking faculty of the year. But they, they, just - I can't live like this. I can’t afford groceries.

And I don't wanna live in Los Alamos for very long, two years, I feel like my body is going to bear the mark of this time. I go running in the worst part.

And I don't like being around those people. They're crazy. That's why I don't like - I mean, you saw my work. It's a bunch of crazy shit they're saying. They're saying crazy shit every day. I can't live like that. 

June 6
You know, I like this story. There were some people from here visiting Vermont. And, uh, while they were there, there was a Catholic priest.
The Catholic priest said,
“Where do you people live normally?”
So they said, “Northern New Mexico — called White Rock.” “Oh!” he said. “I know White Rock.” He said, “That’s where I got my calling!”
On the Overlook. On the trench down there, and the Rio was running below, and then the, uh, the rock, you know? And he said, “That’s where I got my calling to be a priest.”
And I thought that was different!
He said being out there at the end of that trench and looking around... and... yeah. It’s a good story. 

June 9

Alright, which one is Oppenheimer and which one is General Groves??

The fat one is Groves!

Hahaha!

He couldn’t serve in the Army today because Hegseth is tightening the standards! Ha ha ha!

I mean that’s true!

I mean… you know… anyone that wants to die for their country should be allowed that opportunity.

Well anyone who wants to die for their country should be able to do some push ups.

Run back and forth? It smells like roses. God, that smells strong. Is it these?

Is it these roses? Oh, yeah, it is. You should come smell this. Hold on. Oh, my God. This one, Ron, this one.

It has to be that one. It has to be that one. Jesus.

Jack's jealous. This is - he would rather sniff some strange dog's urine.

June 17

I don't think your childhood was like mine

but in a “troubled home” children will do a thing where they're like, “It's my job to fix mom because mom's hurting and if mom's hurting, it's my fault.”

And like, “I'm not doing a good enough job to help mom,” or something.

And that's, in my therapist’s words, an “adaptive strategy for survival” and part of how you make it through those trying times.

So I wonder if something like this is at play in grief because - it's something I've heard from folks and felt inside with grief where it's like,

“oh, I… this is my fault!”

Because the alternative to:

“this is somehow your fault” is that the world is so chaotic it could just, it could eat up your loved ones and that's… I think that's really hard to accept.

June 21

I’ve been working twelve hour days. We have a deliverable in July.

You gotta pack that running into the little time you have to yourself! Is your job temporary?

Why, do you know something I don’t?!

No! all the people I know who work for the lab are just… worried their job will get cut.

Well, one thing I know. They may be cutting the other science at the lab but the DOE just got another billion dollars for weapons from our president’s budget.

I… This isn’t my wheelhouse… My work is about as far removed as you can be from really understanding this work, but it seems to me that nuclear weapons are never… we are only ever going to invest more money into that, correct?

Shelby, until Jesus Christ comes again it’s going to be man against man, yeah.

June 23

“To be at home in a place, to live in a place well, we first have to understand where we are; we’ve got to look at our surroundings. Second, we’ve got to know our own histories. Third, we’ve got to feed our ancestors’ ghosts, so that the ghosts aren’t eating us or the people around us. Lastly, we’ve got to begin to grieve. Now, grief doesn’t mean sitting around weeping every day. Rather, grief means using the gifts you’ve been given by the spirits to make beauty. Grief that’s not expressed this way becomes a kind of toxic waste inside a person’s body, and inside the culture as a whole, until it has to be put in containers and shipped someplace, the way they ship radioactive waste to New Mexico.”

- Martín Prechtel

July 1

July 3

“In the South Fork of Acid Canyon the following radionuclides were identified by DOE as being of potential concern:
Tritium (H-3), Strontium-90, Cesium-137, Uranium-234, Uranium-235, Uranium-238, Plutonium-238, Plutonium-239, and Americium-241.2

Given the lack of edible plants in the canyon and that fact that no hunting or fishing is allowed, the authors of the Interim Report on Sediment Contamination in the South Fork of Acid Canyon (hereafter the Interim Report) considered only the external gamma, soil ingestion, and soil inhalation pathways in conducting their analysis.”

Dr. Brice Smith PhD

July 4

I would have thought after Cerro Grande this community wouldn’t use fireworks. They have their weekly explosions near Boomer - Thursday morning booms in White Rock when Lisa and I are hiking, she says “god, I hate that!”.  
I watch a bat fly out between two Ponderosas at the end of the gravel hill above Acid Canyon as an explosion makes me jump.

In the grass between Fuller Lodge and the Post Office two teen boys shriek “FUCK!”.

I walk past two children - possibly 11 or 12 - one dressed in a black plastic hard hat and the other wearing pink sparkly taffeta - passionately tongue kissing in the street while the drone show hovers above Ashley Pond. The drones form an image of a plane coming towards the audience, a helicopter, and then a pony with an American flag sticking up out of it as I walk past Space Nukes and on to my studio.

July 11

I remember when Jeff said “you need to pay attention to where you end up living. I think that will be important to you.”

And I made decisions based on that. I thought about what he said when I started settling down in Altadena and it seemed like I had made a good decision.

Living in Los Alamos has been mostly pleasant. I love the solitude I have cultivated here, the anonymity. I don’t feel lonely. I can walk two blocks out of my studio down into a canyon.

Living with the daily acknowledgment of the dangling threat of mass destruction and our collective, selective amnesia of this bare fact has felt honest and grounding to me. Living among the people who uphold this reality has felt much like living among any other Americans.