Here is a collection of stories, experiences and observations which have impacted my work and psyche over the years. More to come...
- In my early childhood, I had a reoccurring dream of giant slugs, snails and worms taking over my backyard.
- In elementary school, I took frequent trips to the Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, where I was both repulsed and intrigued by the tank of sand worms. They're found off the coast of Baja; I know very little about them but they must have inspired a scene from Tim Burton's Beetlejuice.
- My first-grade teacher, Marcie, had a tank of axolotls in her classroom. I remember making a drawing with the title "I wish I were an axolotl."
- I used to wait for my cat, Moss, to yawn so that I could look deep into his mouth.
- I got my first camera, a little Olympus film camera, at around age nine. I enjoyed taking photos of dead squirrels and mice.
- While walking along Bryant Street with my mom, I saw a severed bird's head on the sidewalk.
- My childhood friend Chris had a slumber party at her house. She had a goldfish in a bowl on her bookshelf. I awoke in the morning to find that the fish had jumped and landed inches from my pillow.
- In certain parts of Los Angeles after heavy rain, the lack of adequate drainage causes minor flooding, and fat, pink earthworms surface on the sidewalk, often squashed by passing feet-- an unsettling sight between the shiny cars and manicured lawns.
- It's common for city birds to slam head-on into shiny office building windows, mistaking the reflection for sky.
- Over a period of two or three weeks in LA, I witnessed all of the following: a bird with a wounded wing staggering into traffic, slowly but surely making it to the other side; a bat dropped by vicious birds into the street in Santa Monica, feet from where I stood; a blackbird attacked by crows and dropped in the grass where I ate lunch.
- While studying abroad in Melbourne, Australia, I visited the tiny Phillip Island off the coast of Victoria. A beach there was littered with dead birds, some of them dismembered and barely recognizable. I later learned that a small percentage of the island's birds are born with a genetic defect, keeping them from intuitively knowing how to land. They fly off the nearby cliffs and drop to the beach; the unlucky ones get pecked apart by seagulls.
- In Melbourne, while waiting at a bus stop, I was dive-bombed by a magpie. I later read in the newspaper that several people had been hospitalized nearby due to magpie attacks.
- A year or so later, in New Zealand, I was again dive-bombed by a magpie; I was able to run to safety.
- In San Francisco, I was attacked twice by blackbirds near Jackson Park.
- The cane toad epidemic in Queensland, Australia has been an ongoing interest for me. See the hilarious documentary Cane Toads.
- I've also paid attention to the possum epidemic in New Zealand. The book Goodbye Possums goes over several ways to kill them-- they kill native birds and destroy vegetation-- and includes several recipes for possum meat.
- I was attacked by an ape while visiting the rock of Gibraltar.
- My friend Juli battled an angry muskrat in her backyard in Queens, New York. She caught him with a net, hoping to subdue him; he only grew angrier and peed all over her.
- In 2009, I read a brief news article about a man in Florida who had been trapped under a fallen buffalo head from his trophy wall. The man had been asleep in his La-Z-Boy. He was able to reach for his cell phone from under the buffalo head to call for help; the man was unharmed.
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