I've been thinking again in a different sort of ocean. This time it tastes like nuclear combustion behind my teeth.
The juice spilled out on Sunday - all because I was sitting on the little rug in the big room at the Hippie House, letting my little dog make a big mess of hair all over my black t-shirt. A dust mote drew my wandering attention to the bookshelf, where I always notice the most ridiculous titles, ones I have somehow failed to notice previously, though they've always been there.
This title: SOLAR SYSTEMS
The jacket was dustier than the overcast sky, so I thought it might make for an interesting tour. I stood on my tiptoes, even climbed up on a chair, but it wedged itself on some pouting, wooden lip. Milta came and retrieved it for me. She seemed a lot taller before I started wearing heels.
The solar system in 1969 was a different sort of place. (-- The oceans were too; did the Pacific have a garbage patch even then?) I learned that Mercury is the smallest planet and that Jupiter accounts for 71% of our solar system's planetary mass. (Yes, I even remember the figures.) Neptune and Pluto, still a planet, warranted only a page each, while every other planet had a sturdy handful.
Of interest: Venus is our almost-twin. In 1961 Carl Sagan decided that Venus could be terraformed, or made habitable for silly things like us, just by using a blue-green algae from Earth that eats carbon dioxide and reverses the greenhouse effect. Wait - - back up. REVERSES THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT? Sign me up.
My black t-shirt was practically white with little dog fur.
Why, oh why, Milta, I cried out in my over-the-top-sides-and-bottom voice, can't this be done on Earth if it can be done on Venus? We've already got everything we need. She shrugged and told me that MW had walked through DDT showers in the navy every time he docked. I took this to mean that things don't make sense.
I wikipedia-searched Carl Sagan, terraforming but didn't find much.
If I were better than I am I would give up language and figure these things out.
But then, I wonder, what would I say?
