I heard a piliated woodpecker (I think…it could be another type of woodpecker) hammering on a tree. It sounded like a distant jackhammer; used in an effort to bring down a huge pine tree. How would I know how a jackhammer sounds in an attack on a tree…especially a particular species of tree? My ears and my brain obviously are working together in an effort to make sense of this unusual noise. I have no reason to doubt the results of their collusion, but neither do I have evidence to support my conclusion. So, it’s not obvious, after all. Once an idea stakes its claim to a comfortable space in one’s head, though, dislodging it is monstrously hard. Every subsequent clue is manipulated to support the unjustified verdict. Images of the enormous bird appear in one’s head, adding unwarranted certainty to an erroneous suspicion. A fleeting glimpse of a few red feathers in the trees tricks the eyes into joining the incorrect assumption about the sounds of a jackhammer. One becomes even more steadfast in his belief that the noise is, indeed, a piliated woodpecker damaging a pine tree. One confirms all the evidence to verify the unjust belief. If one originally had interpreted the sound as an ocean-going freighter, the brain might have recalled an image of a ship. And the red “feather” might have been assumed to be paint just above the water line. But the idea that a sound and a sight might have been created by a ship in the forest is sufficiently nonsensical to lead to the idea’s rejection. Woodpeckers, though…we just cannot bring ourselves to reject the idea.
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“Very high pollen today,” reads a text announcement on my computer screen. Next to the text is an image that looks like an exploding glass of red wine—or an exploding red tulip. I suspect it was intended to look like a tulip, with pollen erupting from it. My eyes have been watering for weeks. Lately, though, the flow has increased dramatically, as if I have been weeping inconsolably. Tulips, I am sure, are not responsible for the flood coming from my eyes. Instead, I think grass and tree pollen are responsible for my eyes’ itching and watering and staying constantly red and generally unhappy. Every time I blink, I feel like my eyelids are behaving like windshield wipers, scraping a full tablespoon of sand or ground glass across my eyeballs. This sensation is, no doubt, punishment for some terrible transgression I did not realize was such an awful act. Had I only known, I would have done something beneficial for humankind, rather than engage in such egregious behavior… whatever it was. Who knew there really was “hell to pay,” even in the absence of knowingly committing a “sin” or whatever I apparently have done?
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The average size of detached (standalone) homes in the UK is 1582 square feet, according to the David Wilson Homes website. US Census data reveal that the average size of new single-family homes in the US declined from a high of about 2300 square feet in 2021 to 2177 square feet in 2023. In the 1960s, the average size of US single-family homes was 1500 square feet. Considering that larger home sizes tend to correlate with higher construction and maintenance costs, US homeowners probably spend considerably more on housing than their UK counterparts. What else might the difference in home sizes between the two nations tell us? That the British are more frugal? That Americans are avaricious? That the British focus more keenly on need, whereas Americans are more likely to be driven by desire or greed? But, the differences might be better explained in other ways, depending on whether we’re more interested in facts or or whether we’re after simplicity. The average house in New Zealand is slightly larger than the average house in the US. The average house in Hong Kong is 484 square feet. What does it all mean?
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The volumes of text messages and emails I received yesterday was higher than normal, thanks to notices about appointments made for me at M.D. Anderson in Houston. I have five appointments (so far) on my first day of my participation in a clinical trial, beginning at 7:00 a.m. and lasting for most (or all) of the rest of the day. Appointments have been set for one day each in the following three weeks. Seventeen hours round-trip (give or take) required for each visit is beginning to register with me; an additional 68 hours on the road before the end of April. That’s 85 hours, including the 17-hour initial trip already made. Well, I’ve complained that I miss spending time on road-trips; I’ll make up for that before the end of April.
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George Orwell foresaw something many people still refuse to comprehend.
