I Stick Knives Into Toasters and Other Confessions

The mundane thrills of being alive

Once, on a desert hike at Arches National Park, I became ill, almost to the point of collapsing. I stopped repeatedly on the trail — no trees in sight to deflect the high desert sun — as waves of nausea washed over and around me. After slowly, painfully making it back to the car, my husband peeled out of the parking lot to find one with a restroom.

As he…