books

I ordered a bunch of books recently. Now they are all converging upon me, through the postal systems of the world. Some from California, some from Tennessee. Some carefully wrapped in brown paper, shipped all the way from India, where technical books cost a tenth what they do here. I'd get these books from the library, but someone already has. Their status in the catalogue is listed as "Missing."

• Paul Graham. ANSI Common Lisp.
• Zee. Quantum Field Theory in a Nutshell.
• Schutz. Introduction to General Relativity.
• Feynman. Lecture notes on Statistical Mechanics.

A few others I have written down to obtain from the public library:

• Eichenberger. Your Pilot's License.
• Weinberg. Gravitation...

Around me are stacked piles, the detritus of studying (and procrastinating) for the prelim, from top to bottom, all within arm's reach: Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle, Didion's Slouching towards Bethlehem, Dirac's Principles of Quantum Mechancis (if Hemingway wrote physics texts...), Shankar's Principles of Quantum Mechanics (too big!), Jackson's Classical Electrodynamics (too arrogant), Callen's Thermodynamics and an introduction to thermostatistics—second edition, Eyges' The Classical Electromagnetic Field (as pleasant to read as Jackson isn't). Next pile: Koltun (from Rochester!)'s Quantum Mechanics of Many Degrees of Freedom, the little dover book Lectures on Linear Algebra by Gel'fand, Tensor analysis on Manifolds by Bishop and Goldberg, Elementary Analysis: The Theory of Calculus by Ross (a nice and friendly book, I learned Analysis from it and Rudin), Do Carmo's Differential Geometry of Curves and Surfaces.

Springwater

Restless in Rochester, looking for someplace to go, "Let's go to Springwater [map]," we said. The plan was to tramp about, see the property, drive through villages, hike to waterfalls. Our landlords have a cabin there in Springwater, a land trust, twelve acres owned by as many people. The whole thing bought for $9,000 twenty years ago. Forty miles south of Rochester. I probably have the numbers wrong, but that's the gist of it. Kind of like the Tweedy Cabin, but in rural upstate New York. Our landlords, have I mentioned them? A couple, David and David, the nicest people you've ever met.

We drove down through the countryside, down highway 15, out of Rochester, through the suburbs rife with car dealerships and strip malls, then down into the villages. Parking lots fall away to farmland dotted with elegant old houses. We hadn't planned to spend the night, but as soon as we arrived, it became obvious we would. Hiked out around the pond, saw the zip line and rope swing, lashed together from fallen wood, built by the kids who live there. Drove south to a town, ate pizza and wings at the one and only open eatery. Back at the cabin, coaxed a fire into life in the cast-iron stove. Drank wine and ate chocolate by it. Outside, our galaxy was a sash across the sky, brilliant stars everywhere. Amazing you can drive an hour south of Rochester and be in the middle of nowhere and completely at peace.