Remember, Before You Leave Home...

I went to the park yesterday. Most Thursdays I go to the park, but yesterday was notable. Yesterday was a high-traffic day at the park, people coming, people going, but mostly people just passing through. And boy, were there a lot of people passing through.

Most of these people were only notable for their numbers. Groups of five, ten, fifteen, more than I normally see in the park on a Thursday. Most were notable for that reason, and pretty much only that reason. Well, that and their matching t-shirts. There's got to be a company that's rich off the proceeds from selling such t-shirts. Most were notable for those two reasons. And pretty much only those reasons. But certainly not all the odd people wandering through the park.

Like the guy that was most notable of all. So noticeable that I had to try really, really hard to ignore him. The guy that was trying to be the most inconspicuous, but when one's facing the bushes, trousers around knees..well, let's just say they're hard to miss. And he was trying /so/ /hard/ to blend in with the lightpost. But it was a guy! With his trousers around his knees! Making improper use of the shrubbery. No matter how hard I tried to not notice him, I failed, and boy did I ever try.

Of course, what made it even harder not to notice was the restroom in plain sight twenty feet down the path. I guess that he couldn't wait in the non-existent line. Or sometimes I guess that twenty feet is fifteen feet too far.

...They Also Are the Fruit of Doom!

Beans, beans the magical fruit...

I never really understood that quote. How can beans be a magical fruit? Even assuming that they can be magical, which I find rather unlikely. Even given that possibility, though, they're beans, they're not fruit! So even if they were magical, they'd be magical legumes, not magical fruit. But yet, people still keep saying otherwise.

I admit, though, that "Beans, beans the magical legume, the more you eat the more you consume" doesn't really have the same feel. First graders everywhere wouldn't run around shouting that one. Most of them probably wouldn't even understand it, which is why I'd probably run around shouting it if I were in the first grade again. It's too bad I didn't think of it when I had the chance, somehow I don't think it would go over all that well at work.

So I guess I'll just have to learn to accept beans as a magical fruit. Or cease working with grade-schoolers. Or both, but I'd prefer neither, and of the two I guess I'll have to accept the beans being a fruit.

But not just any fruit, I suppose. They're a /magical/ fruit. And I guess that anything that's magical can have fun properties that it wouldn't normally have. Flying carpets, talking dogs, love potions, they're magical and they're not what you would start out assuming. So if they're magical, the beans could be a fruit. They'd just /also/ have to be a legume, otherwise they're not beans at all.

Beans, beans, the magical legume...

Not /Quite/ A Desert... Certainly Not Dessert

I almost killed it. I didn't mean too, and managed to save myself in time, but it almost died. And it couldn't have been considered my fault, noone would have blamed me. Some may have even applauded me, but it sure wouldn't have. It didn't applaud me for letting it live either.

I didn't really expect it to, though. I doubt that it even noticed how close it came to death. Doing so would require understanding the concept of "death", so I'm fairly certain that it didn't know. But I could be wrong, it may have been applauding in its mind. If it understands the concept of "applause".

I was glad I didn't kill it. Even without the (admittedly unexpected) applause, I felt good. I didn't allow myself to affect the cultural evolution of a lower race. It could have been the king of a tribe, for all I know. Its death could have caused decades of war and strife as the offspring fought to have the crown. If there was a crown to be had.

I tend to doubt it, though. That there was a crown anyway. And that it was the king, I suppose. Kings are generally more protected, if it were a king I wouldn't have almost killed it. And I did. Almost.

I received no applause. It had no hands. I didn't have to worry about a crown, it had no head. I did manage to stop my foot in time and watched the worm wriggle around for a while before I headed back to work.

I learned something today. And I didn't have to kill anything to do so. It probably died anyway, though. I've never seen a worm on the sidewalk before. Well, not when it hasn't rained for months anyway.

I wonder if it's still alive.

The Game of Love

I feel so unloved. Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, I think I'll go eat worms. All that. See, I've got this game, I like this game, it's a wonderful game. But noone wants to play with me.

I feel so unloved. It's a great game, it's an amazingly fun, interesting, thought-provoking game. It's one of the only games I've ever played in which it's _likely_ that everyone loses. So if you have your choice of people to play with, you should choose carefully, lest you get a bad apple causing the world to end. Or at least causing Rome to fall. But me, I have no such choice. I can't find enough people to play, much less enough that I can pick and choose the players.

I feel so unloved. Although the more I think about it, the more I realize that if I did have the players for this game, probabilistically I wouldn't manage to win. If there were enough players, I'd spend the entire time playing the game and end up with nothing to show for it other than the bitter taste of defeat remaining any time I saw the box on my bookshelf. And since it's on my bookshelf that I see many, many hours a day, that would be a lot of bitterness. And I don't really want to become that bitter, 'cause then I'd be unable to find anyone to play other games with me either. I do get to play other games, so it can't be me, it must be that people realize that this game would be time consuming and just cause me to be bitter in the end.

I feel so loved. People prefer me just the way I am. They'd rather not spend a wonderfully enjoyable day playing one of the most fun games I own, they'd be willing to sacrifice all that, just so I maintain my mostly-bitter-free lifestyle. People are willing to not beat me, just so I don't have to live with the defeat. Gosh darn it, people like me!

I feel so loved! But I still want to play my game.

Sheeeeeeep!

If I had more sheep than I could shake a stick at.. well, I'd probably only have like three of them. But if I had a whole lot more than that, there're many things I could do with them.

I could start a petting zoo, and charge parents obscene amounts of money to give their children the privledge of risking disease and being trampled (having signed waivers first, of course) just so they could say that they've petted smelly, dirty, loudly annoying critters.

I could gather enough wool to make enough cloth to build a rope ladder that would stretch to the moon, giving a cheaper way to collect moon rocks for my collection. Assuming I can fit enough air into a tank to carry on the way.

I could get rid of all the roads in a large city or the state of Rhode Island, and replace them with moving walkways, powered by sheep chasing carrots on the underside of the street. Or whatever else it is that sheep actually like to eat enough that they'd chase it.

I could figure out what sheep actually like to eat.

I could constantly be asked the eternal question, "So.... What're you gonna' do with all them sheep?" And have an actual answer ready to give, because I'd've had to have figured it out previously, lest my $20.53 saved up for sheep feed gets eaten away before I can use all the sheep.

I could build a house. Four sheep per brick, it's going to take a whole lot of sheep.

Who Swapped My Wallet?

I went shopping.  Traumatic experience every time; there's a reason I avoid it as much as possible.  But I could avoid it no longer, so I went shopping.

One of my many purchases (after the elephant, but somewhere before Venus) was some superglue, and something I always forget about purchasing superglue (because I do it oh so often) is that it's apparently on the "18 or older" list.  I guess that similar to R-rated movies, it's harmful to a child's mental development.  Or maybe old fogies just got tired of having tricks played on them.  Either way, I was asked, "are you eighteen?"

I thought I'd finally stopped being asked that question.  I'd thought that finally I'd no longer have to haul out my driver's license.  I also knew that I'd been wrong before and will be wrong since, but I'd hoped nonetheless.  I'll learn better than to hope one of these days.

But when I got this somewhat confused look on my face and vaguely nodded, I guess she took that as a yes.  It was meant more as a, "I'm sorry, I don't think I really understand the question.  Am I allowed to laugh when I answer?"  But she took it as a yes.  Between the repeated searching glances and the inquisitive stare I'm fairly certain she didn't believe it, but she didn't ask again so I didn't feel like helping her out any.  Or hauling out my driver's license, who wants to show that picture if they can help it?

Certainly not me.  Even if it was right next to the credit card I had to haul out anyway.  Which brings up another question..  Why do they have the card readers for patrons to use if they're just going to request to see your credit card anyway?  Oh, and what kind of stupid question is "Is that your last name?" anyway?  She at least got to see the puzzled look and vague nod again.

Thankfully my last name matched that on the card, but if she'd asked if that was my first name, I'd've never been able to get my superglue!

Time's On My Side... But The Contractors Aren't.

By inverting a couple of words in a statement, one can often find a corollary.  If "all roads lead to Rome" then obviously "/no/ roads lead /from/ Rome".  If "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere" (Martin Luther King, Jr.) then "injustice everywhere is a threat to justice somewhere" (me).  Ok, so that one's a bit more obvious.  But I have a new favorite as of today.

"If it's not fixed, don't break it"

Way too many people spend way too much time breaking things that are already broken.  I've been guilty of this myself, because it's so much fun to break an already broken friend.  Laughing while she lay in a puddle of mirth on the floor, very much fun.  But this happens from world leaders to the guy that tries to break..err..fix my kitchen sink.

So I call on the world to stop breaking things that're already borken.  Stop messing things up that are already in bad shape.  All this wasted time could be put to better use in so many other ways.  By saving all this time, all the objections to adding my face to Mount Rushmore are removed!

Well, all the important ones anyway.  That whole "not a U.S. president" thing I'm not even going to /try/ to "correct".  I like it better this way, thank you very much!

Is That Your Semi-Final Answer?

The world is filled with questions. And answers. Aligning them properly is one of the great mysteries, if someone could do so correctly, even half the time, they'd be able to be the most powerful person in the world. Thus my desire for the superpower of guessing correctly.

But I digress. Or regress. I'm not sure which. With all the questions out there, one is currently more important than most, it's begging to be asked, and thus has managed to find a place in my blog.

What Buffy character are you?

Fairly simple question, but retrieving the correct answer is much more difficult. It is one of those fun questions, at least, in which each person can come up with an answer, argue about the correctness for days, and still all be wrong in the end. I'll start off by telling you that my answer, however, is correct.

I debated for a while before deciding on my answer, waffling between a few answers. My favorite for a bit was "Floofy the Buff Bunny", 'cause it sounds like it could be a character in a show called "Buffy". Every show needs a bunny, and Floofy's a great bunny name. And to be in a show called Buffy, of course it would have to be buff. And since I don't really know many other characters in the show, I don't have much of a choice. I'd be "Floofy the Buff Bunny, the Pet of the Ghost of the Person of the Green Flame of Copper(II) Chloride", but I'm not sure that Buffy would have green flames of Copper(II) Chloride, much less the ghost of its person. I'm fairly certain it's got to have a Floofy, though.

This is what I get for not keeping up with mainstream television, I guess.

The other choice I was debating on is "C". "C" is always correct. Except for when the answer is either "3" or "42", but this seems more like a multiple-choice type thing than a math problem. And since I can't use deductive reasoning to remove choices without knowing what the choices are, "C" would statistically be the best answer.

So I've compromised.

Hi, My Name Is: Floofy, the Buff Bunny, Native of 3C42.

Which are you?

A Frontal Lobotomy

Last night, my knee decided to tell me "no." Most body parts shouldn't have a mind of their own, but my knee (both knees, actually) do. And it told me "no." Which reinforced my belief that most body parts shouldn't have a mind of their own.

As most of them apparently /do/, whether they should or not, I find myself wondering.. what do they think? The things I put my eyes through, they've got to wish that they could talk directly to my hands. My feet have got to want to talk to my legs. My heart probably wants to run screaming, but that'd be way too much work for it. So shuffling off making a whimpering noise would be about all it could manage to do. Well, if it could shuffle. Or make a whimpering noise. But it would /like/ to run screaming.

But my knees, I'm not sure why they're complaining. My feet have more reason to complain than do they, but my feet are just fine with it. No, it's my knees that argue with me. And argue very forcefully too.

Why must they have a mind of their own, and where can I get them a lobotomy? I can do enough thinking for the rest of me, thank you very much.

Don't Fire 'Til You See the Whites of Their... Trunks?

Stumbling home last night, I wasn't drunk, just really tired. Midnight again, and I've not had nearly enough sleep any night for the last month. Why I stayed out so late, yet again, I'll never know. At least this morning I did manage to sleep in slightly, but midnight was still the wrong time to be getting in.

I obviously wasn't the only one that thought so.

Stumbling down the sidewalk, almost made it home last night, when what should I hear but a miniature sleigh and... err, sorry, wrong story. It's "appear" anyway. What should I hear but a rustling in the leaves above my head. Too small to be a squirrel, too focused to be the wind, I knew that something was there.

Of course, I didn't have much time to think about it.

Stumbling under the tree last night, I wondered for a moment about the rustling above my head. But just for a moment, and then it stopped. Still, I had a second to think before....

*THUNK*

Stumbling around last night, my head hurt. One should never come under attack from a tree. It's not health, although it is vaguely conducive to curing insomnia. Whatever that tree threw at me, if it had been just a wee bit bigger, I wouldn't've been stumbling around. If it'd been just a tiny bit bigger, I'd've decided that was a great place to take a nap. Which wouldn't be good, never take a nap in the line of fire.

And whatever you do, be wary of trees. They have great aim. My head hurts.

The Tuna Conspiracy

The beach is closed at 10pm.

I've been trying to figure out why a beach closes. I suppose the claim is it will reduce crime rates or lower the cost of patroling the area. But I've started to think that there's another reason.

For a while, I thought that it might be that the sharks can only swim around for so long, and they need a break too. So since people would be disappointed if the went to the beach and didn't get to see a shark, the beach should be closed whenever the sharks can't make an actual appearance. This would, of course, be at night when they need to rest and on major shark holidays (the anniversary of the first showing of Jaws, for example). But since the beach isn't actually closed on major shark holidays, there's probably another reason.

Maybe it's because the waves get tired of lapping on the shore, and want some time to themselves to play UNO. You wouldn't really want to go to the beach if the waves are going to just ignore you the whole time, so again the waves have to get some time of their own to relax. Then again, UNO cards don't shuffle well when wet.

Of coruse, I really think that it's probably fairly simple. The tuna need some time when they're able to hold their super-top-mauve-secret meetings, the ones where they discuss their plans of taking over the world. Since they already have infiltrated and taken over the coast guard, and their mortal enemies, the jellyfish, can't come ashore, it's fairly obvious that that's when and where their meetings can be held.

So when the tuna do take over the world, don't blame it on me. /I/ stayed on the beach until at least a quarter after ten.

Red, Yellow, Green, Red, Blue, Blue, Blue

The first year I went away for school, we got split into groups for a massive "intellectual" competition. Building bridges, flying paper airplanes, coming up with good ways to do fun things. So my group was doing fairly well, and then we get to..the jelly bean competition.

You know, there's a big jar, it's filled with small pieces of candy of some nominally uniform shape and size, often jelly beans or M&Ms. The point is to attempt to guess the number of tiny pieces of candy in the jar, and if guessed correctly you win. Depending on the situation, the prize can differ. For example, in middle school this was a game at a birthday party I attended. Sadly, I was off by 15.. but the next closest was about 200 away, so I got a jar of M&Ms to call my own! Until all the candy was eaten and then I only had a jar until my mother decided to can some more fruit, and then I only had the bittersweet memory left. That and the glory. Can't forget the glory.

This time, though, the prize was more points for your team. Not that the points really mattered either, but it's the whole glory thing again.

So off we went, looked at the jar, smelled it, shook it some, used our x-ray vision and powerful math skills. Anything we could to get the correct number. Compare our answers, and decide which answer to use from them.

I learned one thing from this. Being able to convince someone you're correct is more useful than being correct to start with.

Well, that and you really need more than a day to eat a jar of M&Ms.

Boot to the Head

They tell me the dodo is extinct. They tell me they used to be around, but now they're all gone. There are no more. They tell me the dodo was too stupid to live.

I say they're wrong.

How could they expect me to believe that the dodo is too stupid to live. Ok, I admit, anything that would allow itself to be called the dodo would have to be pretty stupid. But what proof do I have that they allowed it too happen? If they're not around anymore, they can't do anything about it, and how do I know that they were called dodos while they lived? I don't, and I highly doubt it.

Being "too stupid to live" is a poor excuse for me never getting the chance of seeing a dodo, too. I know /lots/ of people that I'd put in the "too stupid to live" category, but they haven't been removed yet. There're even laws contrary to natural selection. But where are the laws against killing dodos? There's not a one! So I say it wasn't that the dodo was too stupid to live, I say that mankind feared the dodo and their plot to take over all of the string factories around the world, and shipped them all off to a small colony on Antarctica where they spend their days making shoes for corporate America. That's what I think happened to all the dodos.

So if you see a dodo, stay clear. I'm sure they're a bit miffed at this point, and obviously, they've got to know the proper application of shoes.

Passing Lane

So there I am, driving down the road at a good pace. Four lanes in either direction, decent speed limit and very little traffic, so I've got my cruise set. Catch up with this car, so I decide to pass. Merge over a lane, and overtake the other driver.

Of course I'm unable to merge back into my preferred lane. As soon as my back tire is even with his front tire, he speeds up. Just a little. Just enough that it takes a while for him to overtake me.

Well, to the point that his back tire is about even with my front tire. And then he slows back down. Yup, until our tires are even again. But just until, before again the speed comes on.

So back and forth, forward and backward, a good fifteen miles must have been traversed as he was incapable of selecting a more constant velocity. Fifteen miles of me wanting to merge back into the other lane.

Fifteen miles of me not caring enough to turn off the cruise.

Red Light. Green Light.

I can't claim to understand.

So I went driving tonight, drove up to the city. I went dancing up there, but that's another story. Anyway, I went driving. Driving, city, as expected, there was this stoplight. But that's about where the proper expectations ended.

I so don't understand.

So I pull up to the stoplight, and as I approach it turns from green to yellow to red. Of course. Not really what I was hoping for, but common enough, I can cope. I was planning on swapping out my CD anyway.

I really don't understand.

Because about half a second after the light hit red, it went back to green. It's not that there was noone waiting. In the oncoming turn lane, there was a car. So there should have been a left turn for them. In the incoming lane, there was a car, so they should have had a green.

I truly don't understand.

But neither of those cars got to go. Nope, my light changed. From red to green. Right after changing from green to yellow to red.

I won't ever understand.

But that doesn't mean that I'll like it any less.

Oh What a Slug I Am

I have decided that I have the self-esteem of your average ordinary garden slug but not of the kind that lives near the tomato plants in your average ordinary garden because my invisible friend Zoe told me that the slugs that live near the tomato plants are the high-class slugs so surely they've got a lot of self esteem because they have it made in life although I doubt that they believe that I have an invisible friend Zoe because noone else seems to believe it either even though I tell them not to sit in the chair next to me at lunch because she's sitting there already but they go ahead and sit down and then they squish her and blood and guts go flying everywhere but at least they're invisible blood and guts so you don't have to worry too much about cleaning up afterward because noone notices until it starts to smell but then people just blame it on the food which would be great except there's Zoe laying in a pile of blood and guts which would be pretty horrible if she weren't able to make herself all better which she says she can't actually do and that it's her imaginary friend that puts her back together again but I don't really believe her when she tells me that because if her friend is imaginary how could he do anything to put her back together but she says that he's a magician from the planet Zeist so he can do wonderful things like working in the real world even though he's imaginary so I still don't believe her but at least she gets well every time although people do still think that I don't have a real friend because they can't see her and they think that she's imaginary and so they look at me like I'm crazy and sometimes they call me crazy to my face and I'm thinking that I might start believing it myself and that's why I think I have the self-esteem of your ordinary garden slug.

Darth Vader's [Drunken] Galactic Renaissance, Year 2

Darth was very sad at his troop's showing the year before. While the audience oooh-ed and awww-ed at the synchronized drunken flight patterns, the amount of vinyl collected was pitiful. The next year was certainly going to have better results. The programmers had another year of schooling. And anyway, it couldn't be any worse.

One would hope.

The first year, it had been set in space, ships collecting vinyl. The second year, it was on a planet. Mechs duking it out, beating on each other until one of the two collapsed from the simulated injuries. Or until time ran out. Not that time should ever run out, but just in case, there was a time limit imposed.

Sadly, in this fighting game, there was an optimal strategy. A very simple strategy. A one-line program. "Punch". If all the mech did was stand there and punch, it couldn't lose. If all it did was blindly punch, the enemy could never get near, never deal any damage itself. So it was stupid to move into attacking range, but worthwhile to assume that the opponent might be dump. So combat looked very much like...

*punch* *punch*
*punch* *punch*
*punch* *punch*
*punch* *punch*
*punch* *punch*

Unless, of course, you were working for Darth. See, there was another attack you could do. Another attack that would do more damage to anyone moving within range. Another attack that was much more appropriate for the Renaissance. Well, Darth's Renaissance, anyway. You know, the drunken one. This attack was the "Body Slam", better known as "repeatedly fall flat on your face". So a second year in a row, Darth Vader's Galactic Renaissance gained the self-stated title of "Most likely to be drunken" as combat with Darth's team appeared to be....

*punch* *fall*
*punch* *stand*
*punch* *fall*
*punch* *stand*
*punch* *fall*
*punch* *stand*

Year two was not a moral victory. Year two was, however, a tie for first place.

Mister Null

Although at work I am "Mr. Pedantic," and while "The Morally Undefined Ghost of the Person of the Green Flame of Copper(II) Chloride" is another good choice, I think it's about time for me to find a good title of my own. The former, whilst rather often is remarkably fun for me, it's not very flattering and isn't something I really want other people to know about right away. Especially if they're cute and female. The latter, well, it'd be awesome, but would require more work than I'm willing to put forth. That whole death thing is such a pain.

So I'm in the market for a new title, but I'm not sure where to go to discover one. Most stores I know only deal in physical objects--I'm also still looking for somewhere that will sell me bottled confusion, as if I don't already posses enough. And those that deal in things somewhat more abstract, they're way too advanced to bother with things such as titles. Point masses, infinite planes, but no flattering titles.

If anyone could direct me to a titular depot, the reference would be deeply appreciated. Otherwise, well, suggestions are accepted. As long as they're not "Dorkface", I'd prefer something I'd be more willing to let other people know about. Like the cute and female variety.

I suppose I could always go ahead and start working on gaining the title of "The Morally Undefined Ghost of the Person of the Green Flame of Copper(II) Chloride." "The Person of the Green Flame of Copper(II) Chloride" would be a decently impressive title itself. And would have all the ladies swooning, I'm so sure! Although it would probably be cheaper to just have my title be the null string (not "The Null String"), saving a /ton/ of money whenever I get business cards printed.

A Sixty-to-One Ratio

Being the 4th of July, there were a great number of pyrotechnic displays this evening. I even managed to go see one myself, for the first time in quite a while. I could probably have paid to actually go to the amphitheater and heard the music that the display was set to, but being across the street, behind the hill was good enough for me.

I'm used to much less..impressive displays. A firework, a pause, a firework, a pause, rinse, repeat. For a while that'd continue on until it got late enough that they'd light anything they had left over. But not tonight, no. It was set to /music/. So three times, once for each verse I suppose, it started out with a couple fireworks, and then a few more, and then more than that, until three times we reached the climactic large number of fireworks in the air. Best of all, though, were the smoke clouds that remained after these fireworks. Well, after the one right before the climactic huge number, anyway, the clouds where you could see where each part of the firework flew through the air to its eventual decay and demise.

It was wonderful. It was loud. It lasted about three minutes.

But, hey, I brought a book. So I read a few really good short stories while I waited. Until they turned out the street light, and then I had to wait for half an hour before the fireworks began.

Of course now I'm glad that the fireworks were so close to work, for I'll apparently have to wait another half of an hour before the roads are in a decent shape to drive on. Traffic's horrible, but at least I've got a computer to use at work.

But for the three hours of waiting, it was a good three minutes spent.

Well, It's Not Santa

There I am, still in my pajamas, minding my own business and playing a computer game when I hear a key in my front door. Or my neighbors front door, I think at first, but as time goes and the key keeps rattling around, the door banging, I realize that my first guess was correct, there's someone trying to get into my apartment.

Being 10am, I wasn't too worried that it was a burglar. Well, being 10am and the person trying to get in being obnoxiously loud about it. And with several people having just moved into the complex, I figure someone's probably got the wrong apartment and will realize their mistake shortly. And I don't feel like pausing my game. So I continue to ignore the shaking of my front door.

And they're still there.

Finally, I give up. I pause my game when I hear the person starting to knock. If they've not figured it out by now, I should send them on their way, let them stop wasting their time. So I get to my front door, open it, and ask, "hello?" of the person in my doorway. She sees me, gives a shriek, and /then/ glances at the number on my door. Comprehension dawns as she apologizes before running up the stairs to the apartment above me.

What kind of person wastes a handful of minutes trying to use a key in a lock that it obviously doesn't open without checking the number on the door?

Night Lights and Pajamas

I'm such a confusing person. Confused most of the time too, but certainly not constant, because then I could be understood. I just can't seem to make up my mind, not that I really have all that much say in it.

I was a short, skinny kid. For a little while. And then I was a short, slightly bigger kid. And then I got skinnier again, and put on some more weight, and again got skinny, but through it all, all the way through high school, I remained a fairly short blonde-haired, bluish-eyed kid.

Ok, maybe my eyes weren't really blue, either. Sometimes they seemed to be more of a green, sometimes more of a grey. Sometimes you thought it was because of the clothes that I'd be wearing, some colors making my eyes seem one color, some the others. But sometimes it didn't, sometimes my eyes would even seem different to other people.

And I'm not really sure that my hair was really blonde either. It was really light blonde when I was young, but I'm not sure when it changed to more of a brownish color, 'cause when I think about myself, I'm still like four years old and wearing footie pajamas.

But then, after high school, first year in college, I finally grew up. Gained a good deal of height, and apparently became less confusing. In some ways. But I still miss my footie pajamas.

Pennies In Heaven

Some people say that the stars are like the sun, big masses of incandescent gases, gigantic nuclear furnaces. Of course, if I believe that, it also assumes that I believe the sun is a big ball of flaming goo too, and I'm not sure that that's something that I feel like believing in today.

In fact, I know that I don't feel like believing that the sun's a big ball of flaming goo. Or goop, or anything else for that matter, for fire is so much more fun and interesting to both look at and to play with than is the sun. Growing up, I was often and repeatedly told, "Don't look at the sun!" But how many times was I told, "Don't look at the fire!"? None! I was often told, "Don't play with fire!" But how often was I told, "Don't play with the sun!"? Never!

So I refuse to believe that the sun is really made up of a bunch of fire. Maybe it's a giant flashlight as someone tries to search for their missing marble, maybe it's a huge glow-worm inching its way toward the planet. Maybe it's the moon's magnified reflection. I don't know.

But I do know that I don't believe it's a huge ball of flaming goo. And since all the stars are just like the sun, but smaller, they can't be tiny huge balls of flaming goo. I rather like to think they're quarters, and that they get there from my couch, 'cause I know I had a dollar in change the other day, and my sofa isn't willing to give it back to me.