Dan White

I’ve dug up tons of research that I can’t fit in my book; I just can’t find a place for it. I’m thinking that I’ll post some of this excess useless research on my blog because I have no other purpose for it. The first blurb of research involves marmots. They look like guinea pigs but they’re the size of a small dog, have russet or gray fur, and can stand up on their hind legs like human beings. These mammals are quite common in the California high country, in elevations 9,000 feet or up. They look cute but can be quite savage. One of my friends, a former park ranger, said marmots wage war against parked cars. They slither up through the chassis, nibble through the plastic tubing, and suck out all the radiator coolant or brake fluid — and for some reason the chemicals do not harm them….

A lot of people are going around blabbing about the Harry Potter ending. I still haven’t heard what happens. Please don’t tell me. I’m still mad at the chubby kid in my bar mitzvah preparation class who told me that Darth was actually Luke’s father. Also, I read the GQ interview with Matt Damon the other day. He’s apparently still furious about GQ’s previous interview with him — just because they made a dismissive remark about his boots!! Apparently the previous interviewer called Damon’s boots “dorky.” Damon said that the interviewer did not have the “stones” to call the boots dorky to his face. By the way, we’re back in the Bay Area now. Where are we living? It depends on which day you’re asking. We’re basically living all over the place. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

My book will be called “The Cactus Eaters.” It will be coming out next year, and the book has required me to do a lot of research about cacti. The book is not about cacti per se, but a cactus figures prominently in one very painful backcountry scene that takes place about a quarter of the way through, in the middle of the desert. For this reason, I’ve been looking for all kinds of ephemera and weird facts about cacti. My wife dug up a great piece of information: she found a document that suggested that a prickly pear cactus caused a shocking international incident in California about a half-century ago )I won’t go into any more details — you’ll have to read the book to see exactly what happened.) I also found out that Aztec priests used cactus spines to scourge themselves as part of a painful-sounding purification ritual….

It’s weird to live in a place where there are no rats, or where the rats, if they are here at all, are keeping a low profile. In New York, my life was rat-o-centric. I saw rats all the time. Rats fighting. Rats jumping through the laundry area. The last week I spent in New York, I even saw a rat hanging out in a poisoned rat trap! I asked it what it was doing, living in a poison-filled chamber in the middle of an alleyway. “Location, location,” he replied. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

I am looking after a beagle right now near the beach. Anyhow, the other day my glasses went missing, and I was sure — absolutely sure — that the beagle had eaten or hidden them. I asked the beagle to give me some clue about the glasses and where they might be but she refused. In desperation I searched every bush and section of the yard, trying to find the beagle’s stash, and ended up more than an hour late for my sister’s birthday party at the Star of Siam restaurant in Soquel. So I searched the grass and my suitcases and drawers to no avail, which increased my suspicion that the dog had indeed gobbled the glasses. Anyhow, it turns out that I threw the eyeglasses in a garbage can by mistake. The dog had nothing to do with it. The Innocence Project has intervened on behalf of the…

This week we drove all the way across the country. During this time, we saw some strange things, including a strange man in Wisconsin, riding a jet ski through a drainage ditch off the side of Highway 94; intense snow falling all over us in Idaho — on June 5!! — and the nearly deserted downtown of Minneapolis, occupied solely by vagrants. In California, I was walking on the beach just the other day when I saw a guy listening to a garbage can, sticking his face in it, collecting its inner vibrations. It turns out he had one of those itty-bitty black and white TV sets connected to a generator and an extension chord and shoved into the bottom of the garbage can. The TV set had a radio attachment, which he had set on full blast. “Wild Thing” was playing on the TV set. Only in Santa Cruz!…

Tried to get an iced coffee from Cafe Fresh, the attractive but not-very-well-managed coffee place across from campus, on Amsterdam Ave. I went in and the guy barked, “We’re not open right now.” I asked him, “Well, when are you going to open.” He said, “I’m not getting into the details of why we are not open.” So I repeated, “No, no,I didn’t ask WHY you aren’t open, I wanted to know WHEN you are going to open so i can have an iced coffee.” He replied, “I don’t feel like having a conversation right now about WHY we are not open.” And so I went to Starbucks. Nuff said. Their coffee was delicious and they were nice. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

I’ve just returned from a grand tour of the mountains for a freelance writing assignment. I threw down a 12-mile trail run into the backcountry, explored a creek and a briny lake, hiked through a field full of swallows and dragonflies, traversed a national park, learned a lot about mining and earthquakes, ate a duck, toured an Ayurdevedic spa, interviewed 20 people, spent the night in an historic lodge and watched the sun set over the humpbacked mountains. It was a terrific experience though I’m sleepy now and trying to get some rest but my cat is mauling me. Tomorrow I’m back in NYC (but only for a couple of days) http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

I just had a strange realization about my life in relation to geography. I was born on the West Coast, and then my father moved us all to the East Coast when I was two. At age three, my family moved back to the West Coast, where I stayed for 15 years. Then I moved to the East Coast for six years, at which point I returned to the West Coast for six years, at which point I moved to the East Coast for three years. Now, I’m about to move to — guess where – the West Coast AGAIN!! I am a human boomerang but didn’t realize it until this moment. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default