(no subject)
Feb. 10th, 2003 12:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dchenesWelcome to Monday! Line forms over there for propellor beanies and other visible signs of insanity.
This weekend was better than the last one. On Saturday we had lunch with friends, and Hillary got rid of two of her old computers, which made the recipients happy to have computers at all and made Hillary happy to reclaim the space said computers had been taking up. Other than that, I didn't do a whole lot, except ignore my laundry and buy kitty litter.
Yesterday my parents came up to visit, and brought me a book I had wanted to borrow at Christmas but forgot to mention. It's called "The Thieves' Opera", and it's about the general state of lawlessness in 18th-century London, and about two criminals in particular. Fascinating stuff. More about history in a minute. Anyway, my parents were quite taken with the kittens, and it was a good visit in general. After they left I finally started doing laundry, and got two loads washed and one load mostly dry before we went out to dinner at Liz and Matt's. We hung around there for a while after dinner, and got romped at by both rabbits, and in general had a pretty low-key sort of night, which was good. Came home, put sheets back on the bed (enthusiastic "help" provided by all three kittens), and went to bed.
I've always been a bit of a history nut. For a while in junior high/high school, I was fascinated by the Civil War. High school soured me on American history, because you always start at the Puritans, and if you get to WWII, you're lucky, and the next year you start over with the Puritans again. I know nothing about Vietnam, or Reaganomics, or anything that actually happened in this country between about 1955 and 1989, except major things like JFK getting shot, and Joseph McCarthy's rampages, and the fact that the Vietnam War happened.
When I got to college, I was absolutely NOT going to start with the Puritans for the fourth or fifth time. I took Oriental history classes instead (1 year of Japanese and 1 year of Chinese history). It was marvelous stuff. I was learning about things that were completely new to me, and I loved every minute of it. (OK, maybe I didn't love the exams.) It was history from a perspective I'd never heard before. I knew that the US forced Japan to open trade in 1868 or so, but I hadn't ever heard it from the Japanese perspective.
As it turns out, the "why" of history fascinates me enough to make me care about the "who" and the "when". I don't think I would like it as much if it was just "X did Y on Z date" all the time. That's why I'm enjoying "The Thieves' Opera" so much. It's a lot of "X did Y because back then, if he hadn't, he would have starved to death because..."
Maybe that's why I like historical fiction. It provides settings for "X did Y on Z date" more than most history books bother to.
</lj-cut
This weekend was better than the last one. On Saturday we had lunch with friends, and Hillary got rid of two of her old computers, which made the recipients happy to have computers at all and made Hillary happy to reclaim the space said computers had been taking up. Other than that, I didn't do a whole lot, except ignore my laundry and buy kitty litter.
Yesterday my parents came up to visit, and brought me a book I had wanted to borrow at Christmas but forgot to mention. It's called "The Thieves' Opera", and it's about the general state of lawlessness in 18th-century London, and about two criminals in particular. Fascinating stuff. More about history in a minute. Anyway, my parents were quite taken with the kittens, and it was a good visit in general. After they left I finally started doing laundry, and got two loads washed and one load mostly dry before we went out to dinner at Liz and Matt's. We hung around there for a while after dinner, and got romped at by both rabbits, and in general had a pretty low-key sort of night, which was good. Came home, put sheets back on the bed (enthusiastic "help" provided by all three kittens), and went to bed.
I've always been a bit of a history nut. For a while in junior high/high school, I was fascinated by the Civil War. High school soured me on American history, because you always start at the Puritans, and if you get to WWII, you're lucky, and the next year you start over with the Puritans again. I know nothing about Vietnam, or Reaganomics, or anything that actually happened in this country between about 1955 and 1989, except major things like JFK getting shot, and Joseph McCarthy's rampages, and the fact that the Vietnam War happened.
When I got to college, I was absolutely NOT going to start with the Puritans for the fourth or fifth time. I took Oriental history classes instead (1 year of Japanese and 1 year of Chinese history). It was marvelous stuff. I was learning about things that were completely new to me, and I loved every minute of it. (OK, maybe I didn't love the exams.) It was history from a perspective I'd never heard before. I knew that the US forced Japan to open trade in 1868 or so, but I hadn't ever heard it from the Japanese perspective.
As it turns out, the "why" of history fascinates me enough to make me care about the "who" and the "when". I don't think I would like it as much if it was just "X did Y on Z date" all the time. That's why I'm enjoying "The Thieves' Opera" so much. It's a lot of "X did Y because back then, if he hadn't, he would have starved to death because..."
Maybe that's why I like historical fiction. It provides settings for "X did Y on Z date" more than most history books bother to.
</lj-cut
