pameladean

But hey, it's my journal, I'll be late if I want to.

I was awakened at 11:35 on Saturday morning by a telephone call. J wanted to know if I wanted a ride to the Romance Exchange. We arranged timing. I got up, collected medication and a glass of water. No bananas. I put a piece of bread in the toaster and went to look at my email. The Minn-Stf Natter list had a thread about the space shuttle Columbia. Oh, I thought, did they find out something cool?

No. Well, maybe, but not the way I meant it. Oh God no, no no no, not again, I thought. The image of the Challenger rose to my mind's eye. I expect I'll see that on the day I die. But yes, it was again. I looked at Teresa's weblog, and then Patrick's, the links to which told me at least as much as I wanted to know. David and Lydy were gone, having a complicated series of errands to conduct before the Minn-Stf meeting. Raphael was not up yet. What a good thing there's a meeting today, I thought; people can talk to each other about it.

Thanks to kightp's pointer, I'd been reading a lot of war poetry, and I thought of one I had not read recently; I first encountered it in Anthony Price's OTHER PATHS TO GLORY. They shall not grow old as we who are left grow old. I bet they'd have liked to, I thought. I thought too, as I almost always do when thinking about either war or science, of the guy who spent weeks with his head up a tree in some remote hot jungle, studying altruism in vampire bats. His article came out in SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN the month the Gulf War started. What is wrong with all these people, I thought, they would be much better employed lying about with their heads up trees, studying vampire bats, than rocketing all over the countryside killing people and taking their stuff. And indeed all the crew of Columbia were and are far better employed. The war poem kept haunting me, though. There's glory for you. No, really, I mean that.

I pulled myself together and made very careful plans about eating my cold toast, taking my drugs, medicating cats, showering, dressing, packing to go to Eric's later, putting the presents for the Romance Exchange crowd in a bag. When I was sure I was ready, it was 45 minutes til Jan was due to pick me up. I stared at the telephone. I wanted to call Eric. For comfort, because he probably didn't know, though he might, being in regular touch with a number of people who do keep up with the news. But he might not. He'd find out eventually. I didn't want to tell him. I wanted to talk to him. I called him. He hadn't known. I'd assembled such information as there was before I called, so I was able to tell him about the time, and the bit of insulation that hit the wing during takeoff, and the location of the debris, and the NOAA radar showing it. He asked who had been aboard, and I went back to Spaceflight Now and read him the names of the astronauts. That was good, but it made me cry. We talked about where we'd been when Challenger went. We talked about money for the space program, and for other things. He thanked me for calling, saying that he could think of no one he would rather hear bad news from, because I had the right attitude.

I composed a popup message for Raphael, saying something like, "Brace yourself before you go on the net; we've lost Columbia."

I went outside into a gray warm day, with wet sidewalks. Age shall not wither them nor the years condemn.

Pamela