Done yesterday

( to.done 20090326 )

Today I was much less anxious than yesterday; Colleen seemed upbeat and rather determined in the morning, and I felt very clearly that she was supporting me emotionally rather than the other way around. I'm loved, and sometimes I lose sight of that fact.

I made a 45-minute follow-up call to Alice, the Kaiser case manager; I got answers to most of my questions, and she'll check into the few remaining ones. I realized rather late in the game that some of my items were simply venting rather than anything productive.

I caught up with Colleen in the afternoon in the surgery clinic at Kaiser, where she had her PICC line and staples removed. She's healing well. She also said that she'd gone from about 15% leg strength on Wednesday to 35% yesterday, and had actually gotten to a standing position out of the wheelchair. Determined indeed.

A delightful IM with and phone call to my sister-of-choice, pocketnaomi. The weirdest thing was saying something like "/me attempts to send you energy over IM" and having it work. Yay for friendship and the placebo effect, but it still felt weird.

Replaced a proposed but now basically impossible trip to Norwescon with flying cflute and pocketnaomi down here for music and hanging out; the timing's a lot better and it'll be far less expensive. And best of all I'll have more time with my friends, and Colleen will have time with them whether or not she's home by then.

River: History

Back in Junior High I was fascinated by the Civil War, in particular, and other aspects of history. I read a lot of biographies, too, though mostly of doctors and scientists rather than great leaders.

About half an hour ago I remembered the name of the High School history teacher who ruined the subject for me: Mrs. Ryan. History in her class became a matter of dates and events, of having the right number of references for your term paper, and the right number of footnotes per page, and every comma and colon in the right place in the bibliography. I hated it, and I hated her, and I still do.

From time to time I still read about the history of science and technology, and I still read biographies. But I'm no longer interested in the events and what people do in their lives. I'm interested in what and how they think -- their ideas, and how their minds work. If the events of the world become interesting at all, it's because of how they affect peoples' thinking, not the other way around. That's just a side-effect. I'm interested in mathematics, philosophies, systems of thought in general. It can be a fascinating thing, how those influence events out in the world, but it's not the important thing.

I suppose I have to thank Mrs. Ryan now, in a back-handed way, for helping to show me how unimportant dates and events are compared with what goes on in people's heads.

(0328) I think that what fascinated me most about the Civil War histories that I read was, not the politics or the specific events, but the descriptions of famous battles. The strategy and tactics of the war, not the politics.