Dark Was the Night

Dark was the night-- great musical compilation of artists and songs-- also a great idea for my next book.

I think it will probably begin with 20 pages of random sheet music along with a quote about night time, which, appropriately, I will create and attribute to Mark Twain.

The rest of the book will be written in invisible, glow-in-the-dark ink so you have to read it in the dark. (This is vaguely reminiscent of school-girl days when my sister and I would set up elaborate hunts for each other that included deciphering clues that were often time written with candles or white crayons and that you had to color over with a marker to read).

Plot soon to come.

And your lucky number is....

When I was younger my dad had a contest. Except you didn't have to excel or even do much of anything. One evening while I was sitting around the dinner table with my family, my dad happened to pull out some prize or another, if I remember correctly, it was a yogurt.

Unless you've been in a large family, you may not appreciated the significance of your dad being home, eating dinner with you, an bringing yogurt-- with fruit.

Asking each of us to guess a number one through 20, my dad went around the table to see who was the closest to his number and who would win. Coincidentally, my dad's favorite number is 4, the same number that I picked. And ever since that day, 4 has been my favorite number.

Other than that, I'm not really sure what it is about 4 that gets my blood going, maybe past memories of my father and other things I learned about him, completely on accident. Maybe it is the perfection of how four has 4 letters and is the perfect reflection of the word and what it means, just in the word itself.

Or maybe I just like it.

Island Fever

While listening to someone during an evening of "culture" and Mongolians, the presenter talked about how once he was on an island, he served there. In the mornings he would run around the entire 4 mile radius of the island and he mentioned that to say that people get island fever is a bit crazy, because in our day to day lives how far do we go?

But today I have it.

Do you ever feel that? A need to leave, to get out, to be someone else, to listen to music that you never have, to meet people you probably never will. Some days you just have to put your running shoes on. Some days you have to feel the cold snow on your neck-- to feel real-- to feel and to be.

Another evening spent in my basement living room, another four hours wasted, another, another, all I want is some other.

And all we can do is keep breathing.