This wasn't my first effort this morning. I began by heaving a sigh of relief as I seemed to have come to terms with Squarespace, but then I had to look something up, and put my blog on Save and lost it. So here we go again, with caution.
I was saying how tired I am after working so hard yesterday. I said I'd burned my brains out, but then thought better of my hyperbole because I remember Bertrand Russell's comment when he finished his Principia Mathematica, with Alfred North Whitehead. (3 volumes published in 1907, 12 and 13 - I think that's right, but I won't leave this blog again until it's finished). The two authors actually thought there was more to do (there always is) but they had reached a stage of intellectual exhaustion and could not continue with a fourth volume. Russell, I remember reading, said that his brain was never the same again; he could feel it. What? What could he feel? Not flying as high? Not leaping?
Well, then, who am I to complain because I did a little juggling yesterday? I did nothing to the point of burning, or flying. Slogging is more like it.
I'll tell you how banal and domestic and inept my thoughts are about Mathematica. I can make change. I can't really handle my bank balance, though I have instructed other people how, in my book Everywoman's Money Book, written with Lynne Macfarlane. When I took a publicity tour with the book and did some public speaking, I warned people that I was part of a team, like one of my daughters when she was in Brownies.
I don't know what skills Brownies are encouraged to master now, in order to earn their badges, or how they go about it, but in Kate's day, they did their work in pairs. After Kate had been awarded her Housekeeping badge - or was it Homemaking? - I asked her one Sunday afternoon if she would be so kind as to bring me a cup of tea when I woke from my Sunday afternoon nap.
No, she said.
Why? I asked.
Because when she and her partner made tea and toast, she only made the toast.
See, I told my consumer audiences, I made the toast and my partner made the tea, so don't ask me. But I used to balance my bank book, and not on my head. Not any more. The nicest thing about not having any money, I mean money, is that you don't have to fuss much. My line is that my best method of saving money was not spending it. It's true, too.
Anyway, my brain is more or less intact this morning, a little cooler than yesterday, and almost ready to cope. It's time to swim now.