Ramblings of a Martian

So, something I would like for my birthday, and I mention it now, since it'll take some development time.

A clock. No, really, two clocks.

The first, perfectly normal analog 24 hour clock. When it hits 24:00:00, it stops. For 2375 seconds. Then starts again.

The second, probably more complicated, perfectly normal analog 24 hour clock. When it hits 24:00:00, the minute and second hands keep going, but the hour hand stops moving. It doesn't crawl along like normal. When the minute+second hit --:39:34, they swing back to vertical so that what would have been --:39:35 is 00:00:00, and things resume as normal, with the hour hand sweeping slowly along as the minutes move forward.

Those who have known me for a while, or been to my house, probably know that I have several copies of Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy. Many know that they're the closest thing in my personal universe to holywrit.

My first exposure to KSR was in the mid 90s when I had a subscription, for about a year, to both Analog and Asimov's. According to my findings in google, it most likely was 1994, with the publication of the novella A Martian Childhood, set in the same universe and - as I /recall/ - really a part of one of the books (tho, if it was, it was changed significantly, I think). According to my research, it was published in 1994, between Green Mars (1993) and Blue (1996). Anyway, after reading this story, I made a point, on the next family trip to Bookstar (or whatever that bookstore was called), of picking up a copy of the first book, Red Mars. I got a trade paperback, 'cause hardcover is just so expensive and hard to deal with. After that, Green and Blue /had/ to be hardcover. I spent most of the next decade trying to get a hardcover first edition of Red Mars, but they became very hard to obtain and very expensive. loree bought me one, for some $300, for my 23rd(?) birthday.

So, now I have my complete set of hardcovers (Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars, and The Martians [a supplementary collection of shorts and the like]). I also have my original Trade of Red, a signed copy mass-market paperback of Red that xmurf and xiadyn got me for my birthday some time before I moved to Seattle.

Why is this all coming up now?

Well, I finally got my REB100 ebook working (dianthus picked me up a couple out of a pile of discarded junk, can you believe it?) and found software to create books for it, and bought a memory card, and have been filling it with stuff out of my collection. First thing I'm reading on it: Red Mars. I'm about 1/3 of the way through.

And, I'm not relating to the book in the same way I did when I read it the first time.
Yes, I know you're all shocked that I would relate differently to a book when I'm 28 than I did when I did when I was 17.

I just finished part four. I have a better understanding of psychology, historical and practical, than I did before, so I got, I think, more out of it than I did the first time around.
But overall, it's leaving me somewhat depressed. We will, for the sake of argument, assume this is not merely because my overall mood is at the bottom of the long-term depressive-cycle. It's becoming clearer and clearer with each passing year that I'm unlikely ever to achieve any of the long-term goals I've set for myself in the past. I will, in all likelihood, forever remain a mere flatlander cog in some corporate wheel.

Hrm. I'm sleepy, and this turned dark fast. I'm gonna discontinue the entry and go read myself to sleep and enjoy my new headboard.