April 15th

I'm back! Wow, what a liberating time to be free of the internet! It is a wonderful invention, don't get me wrong, but I had such an awesome time without the call of emails or, dare I say it, blogging. I highly recommend a net vacation for anyone who wants to clear his head.

Interesting (for me, anyway) that I come back today, April 15th, a bad day in history:



Abraham Lincoln died on this day in 1865 after being shot on Good Friday the night before by John Wilkes Booth. It was just 6 days after General Robert E. Lee had surrendered at Appomattox. One wonders how our country's reconciliation between North and South might have gone differently if Lincoln instead of Andrew Johnson had overseen Reconstruction: Johnson weakened the fragile union by encouraging Southern rebels, denying freed slaves any rights, and breaking rich men to redistribute wealth.



The Titanic sank early in the morning on this day in 1912 after hitting an iceberg in the North Atlantic Ocean while steaming from Southampton England to New York City. 1517 people were lost; the Titanic carried a lifeboat capacity of less than half of its total 2223 persons on board. Only 706 people, 31.8% of the total, survived. Titanic was the most modern and luxurious ship built at the time, and was thought to be unsinkable.



And of course, today is tax day. OK, I won't go there.

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No, I'm not superstitious, and I remain full of hope even on this dark day. I had a wonderful time this past week with DH and kiddos, not even touching a keyboard (although I did do a considerable amount of writing and organizing by hand in a little spiral notebook). I have a much better sense now of Nest, and am eager to dive in to rewrite and finish the manuscript. The space station research is killing me!