silly but cool
A friend just brought by Katherine Center's new book for me to read, and she (the friend) was so impressed because I'm one of the people Katherine thanked for being such a significant influence (or some such phrase) on her while she was at st. john's. She said she'd never known personally someone who was acknowledged that way before. That's actually the second such acknowledgment in a book I've had, so I suppose that's kinda cool. The "silly" part comes not because the acknowledgment is silly, but it's silly that people think it says much about me. However, the sentiment that caused Katherine to write it is way cool. Not necessarily deserved, but cool. However, for some reason, she likes me. At a faculty party a couple of years ago (her husband teaches at sjs), she sat down beside me out of the blue and told me how influential I'd been on her (which I hadn't realized at the time though I certainly always enjoyed her writing and contributions to discussions). Which leads me to the further point that it's next to impossible to know how much you affect people since they're rarely forthright about it. The effects aren't necessarily all good, of course, but I'm fortunate in that when people mention being affected by me, it's usually in a positive way. Which means that when I'm bad for someone, I guess, it's rarely so bad that they bear a grudge years later or come hunt me down. Which might be damning with faint praise, but still ;-).
Switching topics, my new glasses came yesterday. Elva's annoyed because she says they make me look younger. The new prescription, though, seems to be better as now I don't have to take my glasses off to needlepoint or to read at night even when my eyes are tired. And speaking of needlepointing, my latest canvas, which has a very complex design, is about a third done now.
Oh, and Darcy comes home tomorrow, which is way, way cool. I've really missed her.
And our phone now works again for the first time in a long time. The guy had to replace the line, not just from the pole to the house, but from our pole to the next-higher-level distribution point. Wow. But it's clearer than it's been in years.
And I had lunch with Toby today ('91), which was cool as I hadn't seen him in quite awhile. We visited an hour or so, with me doing most of the talking (because he was still getting over being pretty sick), and as it was about education and teaching and society and human nature and social vs cultural evolution and other sorts of cool subjects, not only did I enjoy it but it was extremely reinvigorating. I felt better afterwards than I have in a couple of weeks. On the other hand, it's nearly two oclock in the morning and I can't sleep, so there's apparently still a bit of trouble in paradise ;-)
Switching topics, my new glasses came yesterday. Elva's annoyed because she says they make me look younger. The new prescription, though, seems to be better as now I don't have to take my glasses off to needlepoint or to read at night even when my eyes are tired. And speaking of needlepointing, my latest canvas, which has a very complex design, is about a third done now.
Oh, and Darcy comes home tomorrow, which is way, way cool. I've really missed her.
And our phone now works again for the first time in a long time. The guy had to replace the line, not just from the pole to the house, but from our pole to the next-higher-level distribution point. Wow. But it's clearer than it's been in years.
And I had lunch with Toby today ('91), which was cool as I hadn't seen him in quite awhile. We visited an hour or so, with me doing most of the talking (because he was still getting over being pretty sick), and as it was about education and teaching and society and human nature and social vs cultural evolution and other sorts of cool subjects, not only did I enjoy it but it was extremely reinvigorating. I felt better afterwards than I have in a couple of weeks. On the other hand, it's nearly two oclock in the morning and I can't sleep, so there's apparently still a bit of trouble in paradise ;-)