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It's Monday morning and already I have a scholarly quibble to make. This means I'm off to a good start this week. It's all a matter of whether the work of Pirenne counts. The author I'm reading argues that looking at the slow and long patterns is postmodern, from the Annales School (especially Fernand Braudel). But Pirenne ought to be credited for that, surely, and, even more surely, he was writing earlier? This means that any notion of flow change or a different length dynamic or even no change at all over a certain period predates the second half of the twentieth century? What this means to me is that the author with whom I quibble is creating false "There was and then there was." History in binary - with simple choices - seldom works, but this time it woks even less seldom simply because the writer in question is basing a part of his/her case on Pirenne's ideas not being around until a half century later.

Unfortunately, this is a review volume and I need to think of a polite way of explaining that it undermines the argument when one tangles the historiography. This is what I've been putting off doing. It's not a bad book, but it really does have a couple of rather big flaws.

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My BiblioBuffet column is already up: http://www.bibliobuffet.com/bookish-dreaming It's a pure nostalgia piece, about manuscripts, mostly.

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My eyes are being pesky today and I'm not even at the hospital yet! Also, my fingers won't type what I've told them to.

Despite this, I only have 160 words (plus much revision) on one of the three logjam pieces. If I can send it tomorrow, that will be one burden I do not carry. I'll have run out of excuses not to do the other two logjammed bits of prose, mind you...

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I wasn't turned radioactive after all, only fluorescent. And the news is a bit ambivalent. Not bad, but not dreamland perfect. I have to return to the hospital on Wednesday to be seen by the retina expert with the possibility of laser. Not much. There is a very small region in the right eye that seems to be sporting new blood vessels and they need to be checked. It might all end up with me being put on watch, just in case or they may deal with it that same day.

It's not actually a bad result. Small possible damage is way better (in my book) than vast definite damage. My eye has come out of this very lightly.

Right now, though, my main beef is time. I don't have much. It gets eaten by turning yellow and meeting lasers. In other words, the more science fictional my life is, the less time I have to actually write the science fiction.

When my eyes are back to normal later tonight (I look like someone from an opium den at this moment, and pages are blindingly white) I shall get some more work done. I can't do it on Wednesday, after all, since the morning is teaching and the afternoon is hospital.

On Wednesday evening I get a rare treat and am off to Geosciences Australia. Do not get between me and my treat! (that last was to my eyes and to my health in general)

Step by step I progress through this maze. It does have an exit point and that exit point is getting closer. The closer it gets, though, the more juggling I have to do. I have to get to Mawson post office, for instance, to collect the last insurance thingie this week (for they won't hold it for me beyond that) and I have to subsequently get to JB hifi and sort out camera cover and memory and stuff. It all has to be done sequentially, too - I can't reverse the order, for the insurance doesn't work that way. I wonder if I can do the camera case and etc alongside sorting my heater issues, on Friday, after the dentist? Hmm.

I'll manage it. And then I shall heave a sigh of relief when it's all managed. Until then, I rather suspect I shall whinge.

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My Reconciliation Week reading starts on Thursday, which is when I can get to the library. I can't get to the functions I'd like, because of the health stuff, so I'm making up for it by re-reading or reading books that will celebrate. For the Mabo decision I'm reading Samantha Faulkner's Life b'long Ali Drummond (the re-read - I really should own my own copy of that book!). To understand the issues more, I'm going to read Larissa Behrendt's Indigenous Australia for Dummies. Over the weekend I'll rewatch One Night the Moon, which makes me cry but which has Paul Kelly.

It's not much, but it's all I can fit into an impossible fortnight. Each year I think "If I do a little to understand, that will help." This is my little for this year. I wish I could do more. I really wish I could get to that function and demonstrate my support - but I can't be in two places at once.