My Twitter friend @peat almost always starts the morning by tweeting: “How are you changing the world today?”

I don’t usually have a good answer. I thought about why this was and reflected on my path. My path is not as a world-changer, at least not consistently and directly. Mine is not fully defined yet, but it seems to center around gaining knowledge (which I hope will lead to wisdom, but we’ll see) and perhaps being an influencer or helper–perhaps–as a beneficial side effect.

So I have found myself reflecting upon the following questions most days: “What have I learned today?”

In the past couple of days, I have learned:

• Japan formed a puppet state in northeastern China called Manchukuo in the 1930s. It was ultimately dissolved after the Second World War. I also learned about the geography of Manchuria and outer Mongolia in general (Sources: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami, Wikipedia and my atlas).
• Commercial growers rarely use Lexan (plastic) for greenhouse construction any more. Reasons include its degradation over time under sun conditions and rising cost (plastic = petroleum = more dollars). (Source: Mark of Orchidaceae in Walla Walla, Wash.)
• the Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico might be the oldest inhabited place in North America (Inspiration: Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather, Source: Wikipedia, Internets).
• Sacajawea Peak in the Wallowa Mountains is the tallest mountain in Oregon outside of the Cascade chain (Source: David via the Internet on his phone on top of Mt. Howard staring at said peak).
• Clark Nutcrackers and whitebark pines have a symbiotic relationship in the Wallowas, as the birds bury and forget pine nuts (Source: pathside signs, Wallowa Mountains).
• The Grande Ronde River in northeastern Oregon, near the enclave of Troy, is stunning. Also: there are goodly number of wild turkeys out there. (Source: Self/obvious/gravel roads/wow).
• The fewer the digits in a Forest Service road, the more likely it is to be passable in some sense. But not always. On Monday, 62 was better than 6415 but 64 sucked. (Source: Deduction/confirmation from Mr. Pencil).
• How wheat is harvested (Source: Observation from hilltop).
• Milton-Freewater, Oregon’s slogan is “Home of low-cost utilities.” Or at least that’s what their sign says. (Source: sign).

Tags: knowledge, learn, Life, peat

One dark and dank night in Birmingham, U.K. I was walking alone on the campus of the University, near the canal on the western edge. It had been raining for a million weeks and the whole country was flooded. My shoes were wet and the low-pressure sulphur streetlights made every color look like dark blood. I was homesick and baffled, and no one likes Americans much so there was that problem, too. There was no one I had known for longer than a few weeks for thousands of miles.

My chin was tucked in–it was cold, cold, cold–so I didn’t see the bundled man, stocky and whiskery, until he was near me and as he passed me he said:

“Cheer up, love.”

With a Brummie accent straight out of central casting, wide open and working class, and completely unrestrained and unaffected.

No other encounter with a stranger has ever affected my outlook so much.

Anything like this ever happen to you?

Tags: cheer, help, joy

What’s the sexiest area of study in your esteem?

For me, these are at or near the top:

• Geology
• Niche history, like medieval European or Icelandic or pre-Spanish Mesoamerica, local history
• Art History
• Literature
• Anything that allows you to do ground-breaking and obscure academic research that might lead to the cure for cancer.

Tags: learning, phds, school, studs

On my way to the doctor this morning up Washington Street, watching pedestrians in sarongs and suits standing on either side of me passing. The sun suddenly looked different. Like the opposite of a blink, more light than ever. Not right for ten in the morning in July. Not the same, like hard white gold and pinpoint illuminating. As if it were being reflected and condensed off of thin sheets of platinum.

They didn’t seem to notice, the downtown-outside-people who had suddenly started glowing white and gold, but I did. For a moment I started thinking about a short story once read to me at night in an apartment, Larry Niven’s Inconstant Moon. Wondering if something had just gone supernova, perhaps these were the last few seconds of known life and these were the shimmery things I was seeing. Waiting for nuclei to disintegrate, for matter to end.

Then the light–the one that indicates go-and-stop–turned an appropriate shade for continuing and the sun’s metamorphosis took a back seat to my consternation about finding parking. These are the losses we suffer every day to the distractions of reality.

Tags: light, thoughts

It’s redeeming when one’s gastroenterologist comes into the room and, grave and serious though he tends to be, says “You look really skinny.”

And that’s the theme of my current health situation, which is to say: optimistic.

Since my dosage of prednisone has been reduced from 40mg to 5mg (and now I get to wean off entirely within the next few weeks!), I’ve lost 10 pounds, my face is angular again, my skin isn’t gross, and I can sleep most nights.

I continue to take 6-mercaptopurine (6MP), a leukemia drug that just happens to do very well for Crohn’s, as well. I’ve been having frequent blood tests to monitor things like my white blood cell count and also signs of toxicity. As I am heterozygotically partially deficient in TPMT I have to worry about my body’s ability to metabolize 6MP correctly, but it seems perfect so far. My levels are great.

So it looks like I have a reached a handsome stasis. I will continue taking the 6MP and an anti-inflammatory called Pentasa for, oh, I don’t know, forever?

The doctor’s feeling is that I’m very much in a nice remission state and that most of his patients that get to this point for the most point stay there. Well, yay!

Yeah, sometimes I don’t feel super. Sometimes my tubes bark. Sometimes I feel barfy. Sometimes things get a bit messy. But it’s OK. Most of the time I feel certifiably fine.

Tags: Crohn's, health, yay