I spent a couple of days in Port Aransas this week, working on a knotty writing problem. I'd work for a few hours then walk the beach or the pier for an hour or two, which was lovely.

I felt so lucky to be able to leave my yellow room and its ANGST and walk along by the pretty silver shallows, and great green-rolling deep, and the busy skimming birds, and behind it all that endless ravishing sea-sound.

I've always wanted to find a starfish, ever since I was a wee kid on family vacations at Cocoa Beach. This time I found TWO--but I wasn't quite sure they were dead, they had an alive-feeling, so I put them carefully back in the water. I can only imagine what kind of bad luck comes from bringing home a dying starfish. It sounds like the end of all hopes and dreams.

ANYWAY. Speaking of luck, good and bad, and dying, and whatnot, I have a tiny story up at the Curiosity Cabinet about a boy having a quite strange and rather sad birthday. Hint: it gets creepy.

All beaches look alike--maybe they are all the same place in some ways--and yet this was my beach so look, look.

The pier at Port Aransas just before sunset.

The Gulf looking so much prettier than its usual Mississippi-mud-murkied self.

Katherine Catmull