I did a whole entry yesterday about the light up here in Alaska. It seemed to take, but now it's vanished. Hmm. I'm in an internet cafe in Anchorage. Who knows what northern gremlins they have here? What I wrote about was the quality of the light: it glows up here. Today it's sunny, and by that I mean, clear and sparkling; but yesterday was gray, raining on and off -- but some quality of the air up here, some thinness maybe, makes the light glow even in the rain. Farther south, rain and mist mean dullness. But here, everything has a faint transparent quality, as though leaves, cars, the sidewalk, were glazed, and whatever light there is were penetrating a millimeter or so and then bouncing back.

I went for a long walk yesterday on the coastal trail around Anchorage, and then through one of the municipal parks. Waterbirds everywhere! Scaups of some kind, mallards, and red-necked grebes (never saw one of those before) and check this out: scaups are diving birds, and they were paddling across a pond and then diving, popping up ten seconds later with some tasty lakeweed in their bills. And the mallards were diving too! I mean, completely under water, the full ten seconds. Keith, I know this is putting you to sleep, but you bird people: diving mallards? Is this learned behavior, from the scaups? Or are these mutts, some kind of crossbreed? Though they looked exactly like normal mallards.

Okay, I'm going to post and see if the northern gremlins eat this one, too.

OK, PS, I see what happened -- this computer thinks it's October already! I'll have to see what I can do about that, but in case I can't do anything, I'll leave this up/