Dichroic Reflections

my subconscious is reading ahead

First, the local news. I didn't get to fly once AGAIN this morning. As I began preflighting I discovered the plane I had reserved had its port nav light out - and it was still dark at that time, so it was really needed (though I think they're required even in daylight - seeing the red and green wingtip lights makes it possible to determine if another aircraft dead in front of you is flying toward you or away). Well, one advantage to flying at 6AM is that there are likely to be other aircraft available so my instructor went and got the book for another airplane. On this one everything was going fine until I went to check the oil and couldn't unscrew the dipstick. Neither could my instructor. It unscrewed a little then stuck, so the threads may have gotten stripped. I checked my toolbox but didn't have pliers and apparently the FBO locks up their toolboxes at night. The instructor proposed flying anyway - the last person would have had to check and the FBO's policies ask for a quart more than the airplane absolutely requires. Also, the cowling was clean so we knew the aircraft couldn't have been burning or leaking oil badly. I wasn't too comfortable with that, because first, the last person would have been that same idiot who screwed the oil cap down too tightly; second, how do I know they didn't use the same logic? ("Oh, the oil is a bit low but I don't fel like going inside to get more - we have a margin anyway.") As a last resort I got the Quikrench I use for rowing to see if that would help. It might have ... if I hadn't dropped it. Strike three, foreign object debris (FOD), no flying for me, and they'll have to take off the cowling to get the wrench out. (They can't get too mad at me, since I should have needed the wrench anyhow.) Between that, my travel, a broken turn coordinator and a broken engagement (my CFI's) I haven't gotten to fly since before Boston, unless you count one seesion on the simulator.

Also, somewhere in there I slammed into the edge of the step on the strut, just below my knee, and it still hurts like a motherfucker.

It's raining this morning, but I'm watering some plants in the backyard anyhow. Only in Arizona, where you can walk between the raindrops.

Next, the pondering. I've been reading Silverlock and appreciating NESFA's new edition with the Companion. What I'd like even better would be a version organized on the lines of Martin Gardner's Annotated Alice so I wouldn't have to bookmark two spots at once. (I'd also like a CD of the songs, since they include music notation but I don't sightread.) In view of my last entry here, my subconscious seems to be remembering the book ahead of my rereading. I hadn't remembered this passage:

At times the mind works on two levels at once and so it was with mine on this occasion. Half of it was giving itself gleefully to the moment, while th other half was revolving a new idea.What had impressed me was that this friar was well-informed and had a lot of fun out of that fact alone.In the past, if I had wanted to find out anything, it was always for a practical reason. Now I glimpsed the concept that to know a thing for itself could be a source of joy. Take the song we were bellowing. It was easy to appreciate, but I would have had more chuckles out of it if I had known, as the others did, about the personages involved [ed: Zeus and his bovine pecadilloes]. From then on I intended to begin picking up data from Golias or any other source.

But, as I say, this resolution, made with the solemn half of my mind, didn't interfere with the attention the other half was giving to making as much noise as possible.

And this next passage is for Keilyn, because somehow it reminded me of the positive side of all the Drama of adolescence: the feeling that you're closer to the things that Really Matter. (Er, not that Keilyn's adolescent; we had some conversation about the angst and drama of that age. And Silverlock's no adolescent either but he is doing the same sort of finding and evolving of himself that we all generally do in our teens.)

There probably wasn't as much melody as I remember - I had had some ale, too - but I experienced a pervasive sense of blending with life at its most dramatic.

That was the best of that age - nights with music and fireflies, unrequited crushes, new knowledge, infinite books I hadn't read yet, time to read them, the heady experience of finally making a few friends who read the same books, and a feeling that it all mattered immensely.

Posted by dichroic at November 7, 2004 07:52 AM