Joe Haldeman's Blog, page 91

Homeward bound

Thanks for the good wishes, all. Gay and I are both still adjusting to the idea -- I guess out of self-preservation we haven't let ourselves be too optimistic.

It was undramatic enough. The doc looked at my tubes and wounds and said, well, you could go home now if you want. Do you feel okay to fly?

In fact, I'm not sure I would need a plane.

Just have to get in touch with my primary care doctor at the VA in Gainesville, who will hook me up with a couple of specialists -- a gastrointestinal su...

FLORIDA BOUND!

We're headed home! The surgeon released me, and Gay's been on the phone arranging things. Be back home in Gainesville about 1700 Wednesday.

Have a doctor appointment down there on Friday, so that aspect of life will continue uninterrupted. Still a couple of surgeries to go, but at least I'll be able to recuperate in the sunshine. And I'll recover much faster, surrounded by my telescopes and art stuff.

Joe

post-op memories

An old friend who has been through the mill with cancer wrote and asked me how I felt during and immediately after surgery . . . .

my earliest recollections after I went under were a series of ghastly dream images, where I was involved (as a third-person character) in painful and disgusting ways. But for some reason I think that those were only in the first hours after surgery. When I slowly came out of it I was of course drugged to the gills, but my memories are mostly pleasant, a successio...

Diet on the American Plan

Jeff Carver took over my sf class, Keith, and I couldn't have made a better choice. (Not that I personally made the choice -- I was still unconscious.) The Longer Fiction was picked up by a writer I don't know, a friend of Junot Diaz.

I don't know whether I will get to Florida quicker than if I were still teaching at MIT . . . I'd be leaving Cambridge on 18 December. Guess I'll find out tomorrow, whether we'll beat that. Hope we will.

Dave, if I opt for cryonics I don't think I'll use a Den...

The right to keep and try to lift arms

Dave, when I was in high school in Bethesda, Maryland, there was a place across the Potomac called "Ye Olde Hunter," which was the retail outlet for Interarmco, an international weapons dealer. They had thousands of old rifles from WWI and the Spanish-American War for less than twenty bucks (I googled, and the basic Krag carbine now goes for $600-$1600.) A buddy of mine got a British Enfield jungle carbine there (without ammo) and I was so jealous.

I was totally impressed by their WWII anti-...

Blazing saddles and other breaking medical news

How could I have missed _Blazing Saddles_ and _Butch Cassidy_? I've never seen the bowdlerized version of B.S., for which I'm grateful.

Interesting coincidence -- or probably just an example of subliminal recall -- hours after I wrote down that list of Westerns, I looked at the TV listings and saw that the Turner channel was showing _The Treasure of Sierra Madre_, included on the list in spite of its modern elements. So we watched it after dinner and much enjoyed Bogart chewing up the scener...

Heinlein Award

(Response from sff.net -- )

I was happy about the Heinlein award, of course, when they told me about it. Decided before I got sick, glad to know, so it's not a sympathy thing.

Dave, I like the specialized use of the word "valid" in symbolic logic. An argument is valid if (so to speak) both sides of the truth-value equation balance. But that has nothing to do with actual truth. If any of the elements of the argument are false, the validity of the algorithm has nothing to do with "truth."

Go...

Ah believe in John Wayne

Dave, I don't even believe in Newtonian physics or Einsteinian relativity, as I understand the verb "to believe." I think they provide good answers to the right questions. One counter-example and I'm reaching for my hat.

I've been comfortable with this state of nonbelief since I was in my teens, though my atheism predates it. My juvenile atheism was a kind of belief; I wasn't old enough to be comfortable with absolute uncertainty. Now I take comfort in it. Belief of any kind makes me tire...

holidays and horse operas

I like your take on Christmas, Dave. I try to get the best out of it, too. Won't be able to do much high-caliber gift-giving this year; too much time spent on my back. But we'll have the family and feast and the streak of goodness that runs through the commercialism like the delicious apple and cinnamon through a plain roll of a morning. Like morning coffee with a surprise shot of Grand Marnier (no longer for me, unfortunately).

I'm sorry winter is such an unrelenting downer for you. We ...

take a turkey to dinner

(In response to sffnet -- )

Actually, I like putting on a big feast myself, when I have normal energy. I like to do a couple of ducks (used to be a goose before they went sky-high) and have plenty of meat and fat for cassoulet the next week. The family picks over one of the ducks the day before Christmas.

For some reason I've been especially feeble the past couple of days. Maybe the approaching (two and a half hours now) holiday. Did I mention that I don't much like holidays on principle? ...