Ink Tea Stone Leaf

A place to get the words out

  • Reflections on a school lockdown

    I work as a tutor in the AVID program at a local high school. As part-time staff, I typically leave for home fairly early, between 1:15 and 1:30. Most days I have a few significant opportunities to help students understand a difficult problem, and a little downtime to read or to work out some puzzles.… Continue reading

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  • An Irritating Cipher

    The following essay is encrypted in a relatively uncomplicated but silly cipher. What does it say? Solve it and see. Why did I say it? Solve it and see. Why am I being so cryptic? It’s cryptography, you see! Prospective puzzlers get two hints: the answer is in English, and I don’t think it’s hard… Continue reading

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  • Three poems about revolutions

    I knew that I had nothing left to lose,when on the screen I saw utopiawith all improbable elementspatiently explained by smiling scientists,and reflected on my experienceof broken promises and glass,of clockwise twisting screwssinking into splintering particle board,of ignorance without sufficient adjective,and found it my considered opinionthat demanding nothing less was all my heart could stand.… Continue reading

  • January Sixth

    I wasn’t actually planning on writing anything to commemorate this anniversary. The media is full of commemorations and condemnations of what happened at the U.S. Capitol, just as surely as the Republican party is attempting to distort the true record of events into anything except their own complicity in an attempted coup d’état. This blog… Continue reading

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  • Jimmy Carter

    This new year will be the first in a full century without a living Jimmy Carter in it. Of course, the first several years of his existence were not especially consequential to world history. He had to first be brought up, educated, and established into life before his actions could begin to matter more than… Continue reading

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  • A pronouncement on an informal fallacy

    Whereas the weekend has sneaked up on me entirely unexpected, and whereas I have but precious few minutes before my friends arrive and I can type no more this day, I feel compelled to swiftly pronounce upon some state of affairs in this world, with the cool eye of a dispassionate observer and the authority… Continue reading

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  • The Two of Them

    Having set the scene for them,removed the obstacles that stymie fleshand freed them from constraints of time,having laid my pen aside, I wonder, did they find what they were seeking,what I set them after?Come the morning, will I find themstill together,will the hours that passed have been relief,as beautiful in retrospect, in day as night?Will… Continue reading

  • A Christmas Playlist for the Ages

    The following posts contains spoilers for the Christmas Party I will be hosting on December 25th of this year. If you will be attending this party, consider whether you wish to know what music you will hear ahead of time, or whether you would like to be surprised. In recent weeks, and thanks to the… Continue reading

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  • The Philosopher’s Skull

    Plato said it once, or might have saidwe wake in darkness, born as if some wholebone were brusquely dropped on an old floor,with empty holes for eyes to watch the lightsgavotting on the wall — he may have meantit otherwise, I can’t be sure, I haven’tread the scrolls he scribbled epsilonsand sigmas on, but under… Continue reading

  • The Small Season

    Consider the following Christmas lines (emphasis added): When what to my wondering eyes did appear,But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny rein-deer, With a little old driver so lively and quick,I knew in a moment he must be St. Nick. I cannot be the only person who was ever struck by these lines in the… Continue reading

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