Journeys 3.1

Another week of daily shots and observation. Mercifully, the lights have dimmers in my drab hospital room. As always, I declined to spend the day sitting up in bed, so they kindly rolled in a recliner, which, I guess, is somewhat similar to sitting up in bed. Continued my reading goal: escape to Japan by learning about a positive period in American history, the post-WWII occupation. Unlike in Germany, the USA governed through the existing Japanese state apparatus.

On Sunday mornings before we go out for our walk, Dwight tends to the plants. Currently, they’re dispersed throughout our home, with the succulents enjoying the balcony. Before any long trip, all the plant racks are wheeled to one location so they can be connected to drip irrigation.

Cycled through the sculpture yard at Casket Arts today, as I occasionally do. I was a bit disappointed not to see any works in progress (I always find the process so interesting), as there were only finished pieces on display. Maybe this piece, Time Machine, is reaching back through industrial history to speak of oxidation and decay. It feels fitting outside a building that once mass-produced coffins.

​It was raining, so I walked over to the U. I’ve spent about 30 hours there this week, and my commitment continues in four-week units, depending on the results. At a minimum, I’m helping cancer research, but I’m also hoping to help myself by kicking my daemon further down the road.

Arrived today: silicone food containers. Excruciating pain from a tiny shard of glass embedded in my foot from our old glass set brought me to Urgent Care twice. Although these containers are expensive, I don’t expect them to generate any Urgent Care copays. They’re oven-safe to 450°F, so I’ll just need to watch out for burns instead.

Delicious! The study nurse brought in a fan and pointed it right at me. I’d arrived overheated and soaked after a steamy 16-miler complete with a breakfast stop at Lake Harriet with Dwight and a huge rubber duckie.

Spent a full day being observed for my second dose of the study drug: plenty of time to finish The Traveler, a biography of polymath George Forster (ethnographer, travel writer, political radical, …). Aged 18, he joined Captain Cook’s second voyage. He defied prevailing Enlightenment thought by rejecting human rankings and hierarchies, maintaining that being a good or great person “is not bound to any particular place on Earth or to a privileged tribe.” Amen to that.