Tweeter-de-deedily Deet

Why I'm doing this remains unclear. What I hope to achieve (I must needs always have goals) remains unclear. But I'm Twittering, even though it sounds more like a bird with Turrets than a social networking fad. This coming from the man who rails ceaselessly against the social-isms Facebook and MySpace. 

Actually, I think Twittering is more of an onomatopoeia. But, of course, you only hear it when the Fairy Godmother's out back changing your year-old rotting pumpkin from Halloween into a sleek ride to the ball. So odds are you're not familiar with the Twittering sound itself (cf. "Bedknobs and Broomsticks").

I think, at the least, it will provide fodder for this blogger. For longer exposes on the things that are really close to being nothing at all. Now all my ideas could have the uniting quality of lasting value! Well...  with a little help from my Fairy Godmother anyway (who, is, as it turns out, is not much older than me and had the unfortunate lack of foresight to sell some of her stocks high. Not all of them mind you. So she's not out on the street or anything. But, well, she can't quite retire by the time it strikes midnight any more).

Let's see how this goes...

The Curious Case Of The Trash Can In The Wind Storm

I have a limited, sophomoric understanding of physics. But what happened last night seems impossible. The wind was strong all night. A great, unseen staccato of gusts shook the house, flickered the power, and moved my trash can. But not only moved it. Guided it through a Borgesian labyrinth to the front of the house, nestling it in a cement corner of the house and steps.

I have drawn this phenomenon to scale, with the Trash Can represented in light blue, and the two possible paths in black and yellow:

Now the black line is the course I believe the trash can took. The yellow line represents the more plausible course. However, this feels more implausible when one considers the dynamics of navigation required amidst the wind tunnel between the two houses, the degree of the right angle and lack of space between the two cars. However, the black line is also unlikely given the fact that the gate (two barn-type, shoulder-length doors), represented in brown, opens towards the cars and the space between the red car and the house, while enough exists, hardly merits the likelihood of successful of travel without setting off the car alarm.

Yet it did happen. And I, in my socks and t-shirt and jeans, pondered it at great length in the aria of wind singing around the house this morning. I traced the possible paths while holding the Trash Can. Measured the breadth of passage between all the necessary straits...

It is indeed a most curious case.

French Class Moments

Ever have one of those occurrences where you finally get something. Maybe it was something originally required of you to get. Maybe it wasn't. But I recently had one. It involved the comic strip Non-Sequitur. The one that replaced The Far Side in my local newspaper growing up. I just "got it" the other day.

*Not this particular entry, but the name of the comic as it were. I get this entry; it's mildly funny. I just pulled it from some random place on the Internets. Non-Sequitur never quite replaced The Far Side, but was an adequate comic.

Still, nothing compares to Calvin and Hobbes. Nothing replaced it. Here's the final, saddening and maddeningly glorious final entry:

Fantasy Football vs. Presidential Elections

Let me say this, Fantasy Football and Presidential Election years are mostly similar. You have a draft, you're excited about your team/candidate. Then, the real season starts. Players get injured/candidates do stupid things. By the end of it you're yelling at every inconsequential 3rd and 12 where they don't hand it off to the running back who you need to get rushing yards. FFL turns you into a wreck of a human being. Everything starts sounding good and you go against your better judgement: Hey, I need Cutler and Selvin Young to have a big week against the Patriots so I can pull off a 35 point comeback and win my game knowing very well that those odds mean the Patriots must lose. Still, you're oddly compelled. And your scouring the waiver wire for match-ups. It's the FFL-syndrome.

Presidential elections are just like this. You get fired up over little things. You start yelling at stupid things candidates do, stories the media does and doesn't cover, wardrobe costs, erudite put-downs, negative campaigning complaints (what is this T-Ball?), talking points you've heard and heard and heard. You turn into a wreck of a human being. What you originally drafted your vote around has been twisted, injured and is on the practice squad. And the third party candidates are the waiver wire.

I face a dilemma next week. See, there's this thing called the Redskin's Rule in Presidential Election years. And I have Washington's Defense starting in my Fantasy Football League. I need to have a good week from my defense er go I can't have them giving up a lot of points. Essentially, Washington needs to win for me to have a good week in Fantasy Football.

Am I petty and burnt out enough by both seasons to root whole-heartedly for Washington's DEF even if it means four years of McCain, but a FFL win? Well, I know Washington fans who would take a win and live with the next four years. I lived near Pittsburgh; I know Steeler fans who want a win even if it means Obama-Biden for four years (Hilary 2012!).

Maybe Cutler will have a good week...

Magical Reality T.V.

In anticipation of my reading One Hundred Years of Solitude, I, in my research, have looked up the term magical realism, which plays a large role in this novel. I'm not sure I entirely grasp the concept-- though I liken it to the technique in Scrubs. Perhaps it's because such things, especially in literature, never seem to strike me as odd or difficult or anything apart from reality. So to categorize it muddies my understanding of its sequellas.

And I am serious: if I should run into a unicorn while on walk, I would not be the least bit surprised. If a lamppost should turn into an elephant, I would not be surprised. If both daylight and night grow longer but the day length remains the same, I would not be surprised.

Suppose for a second that a reality television producer, fresh of his latest success of putting 6 animals (lion, zebra, fly, monkey, dog, cat) and 3 Hot People in a house for 10 weeks and allowing America to vote each one off based on a serious of challenges that involves, but is not limited to, surviving, decides to further push the limits. He or she pitches the concept of magical realism in this fashion. Assembled would be Chewbacca, Frodo, a Gummi Bear, Captain Kirk, Hari Seldon, and three randomly selected Americans who are extremely good-looking and who also think they can dance. Let the mayhem ensue!

Magical Reality T.V. : One Ring, In a Galaxy Far, Far Away, Bouncing Here and There And Everywhere, Boldly Going Where No Man Has Gone Before, uh Who's Hari Seldon? And The Hottest Contests Ever To Be See Dancing On T.V.! This Thursday @ 9pm.

Garcia Marquez would be proud.

Twenty-One, Some 50 Years Later

In lieu of my dirge on How To Read A Book, I stumbled across a piece by one of its authors, Charles Van Doren. His personage, ever since I saw Redford's "Quiz Show", has fascinated me. I am persuaded that it wasn't the pursuit of fame or greed that brought on his fall. But it was something in him, and for that he sought to make it right. I am always glad I convinced my father to rent that movie years ago.

Anyway, he penned a piece for The New Yorker recently about the saga. Can't say life has changed much with the infusion of reality television. It's greatest loss, however, has been the person of character.

The Letter Q

It's a fascinating letter. For starters, it always must be followed by another letter. It's contingent letter. Parasitic. A letter who's existence is permissible only by the inclusion of another letter. That's fascinating. Sure, there are words with q without u. But a cursory look shows that they are either obsolete spellings or foreign words taken a slight hold in the English language. Negligible at best.

It does have some proper function. There's the disputed Q document. Also, my favorite Star Trek character went by Q.

Q represents an interesting conundrum. Could it exist without U? Can humanity survive? Will we function without a U? We work well with silent letters. We work well with c sounding like k; g sounding like j. I think we could maintain our morality if we took away the U. But I am not a philologist. It's not up to me. Life will go on as it always has: with the U next to the Q.

Some of my favorite Q words in order:

1. Quixotic -- How often to you get and x and q in the same word. Not often. Plus it looks like it means. How often do you get that.

2. Quotidian -- Another word with an odd look about it. Ironic in it's meaning with relation to it's appearance.

3. Quantum -- The double U. It's a sleek looking work. Sounds great too.

4. Quasi -- Looks odd. Lots of vowels. And it sounds like there's a z in there. There's not. But it seems like there should be.

5. Quagmire -- Sounds thick. Heavy to say. Not too tough on the eyes though.

Honorable Mention:

Querulous -- Triple U!!! More vowels than we can count. How can we complain about this word?

Missing: 33 Pages

So I'm in the midst of a book the other night when I turn the page. The proceeding sentence makes no sense. Maybe I missed something. I did not. It still doesn't make any sense. Turns out (ha!) that the next page is not in fact the next page but some 33 pages into the book's future. A quite unfortunate turn of events that required me to start a completely new book. Seriously, who just removes 33 pages? Because they were removed; no obvious tearing, fraying, just meticulously extricated from the book.

So I'm looking for 33 pages. From 120 to 153. Love in the Ruins. If anyone's seen them.

But hey, at least I'm not missing this.

What Would You Do

So the Mrs. proposed a rather interesting question on a recent road trip: If you could do something else for your job, something very much different -- perhaps hinging on a regret of sorts from our youth (yes, we're that old these days!), what would it be? Now in the past, we've used this means of questioning to determine career direction. In fact, it was what first suggested to us a different career path for me (one I'm still working towards, mind you!). But in this context, current work happiness and future work happiness did not play a role. It was more simple and straightforward a proposition: What sounds cool and sounds like something you'd want to do?

My answer, to her somewhat surprise, was: work for the CIA. Of course, I'm too passive and possess the complete inability to fool anyone, so being an agent was not my intent. I supposed to her something at Langley in either the tech field or maybe even languages. Leading too my wishing I had spent more time learning languages as a youth.

And this is why the Mrs. and I work. For as much as we are different, we are alike in the cool, essential stuff. The same overarching abstract types of things govern the differences we espouse on a day-to-day basis.

The Mrs. too wished to be a translator. She figured to work in a hospital, being the person people of different cultures can turn to in a crisis. Having witnessed the compassion, comfort and strength the translators can show at her own hospital.

Of course, we went into our explanations for why we chose what we did (my reason, well, it'd be cool to say you work for the CIA. Wait! Can you say that?). I found in fascinating to think it through. To not think what you want to be doing now, but if circumstances were different, if you had taken a different step somewhere along the way, you wouldn't be entirely different than you are now, but you'd be different and doing something different. So what would that be?

Random Tidbits

So if I can't get a tan after being in the sun for 6 hours yesterday, and 12 over the past three days, there's no hope for me. None. A friend joked that Isaac had been in the womb for 9 months and he had more of a tan than I did. Sad, but true.

Isaac is saying his own name. While I don't think he identifies himself yet, the "I" association that differentiates our consciousness from animals, it's still hilarious. The other day he just kept screaming Isaac in the grocery store. I even got him saying it on the phone yesterday. Nothing, and I mean nothing, beats that.

So glad the Celtics won. Banner 17. Fantastic. I am also so glad the playoffs are over. 2 month! 2 months I watched games every other night. It's been exhausting and seemingly worthless. I'm not belittling the greatness of the championship, but it felt more like winning a marathon than winning an all out sprint. The NBA. It's Fan-tastic.

Tiger's performance over the weekend: Best golf I've ever seen. Perhaps the single greatest sports performance (up there with MJ's Flu game) I've ever seen. That was worth it. As was the 9-holes I was inspired to play.

Set-up the hammock yesterday afternoon. I know I'm prone to hyperbole (especially in this post) but it's probably the most comfortable thing ever. I laid there for 20 minutes looking at the sky and rocked in the breeze.

The DVD/Surround Sound System broke. Much to my luck we are looking to get another one. Maybe we'll wait awhile. The iPod plays all our music. We don't watch many movies during the summer. I'm willing to wait. It's been sort-of nice. We'll see if I can get one on the cheap on the eBays.

And I'm reading Atonement. Apparently one of the best 100 books of the 20th Century (and slightly beyond). Not impressed so far -- nor was I with the film version. So I'm not expecting to finish it, we'll see.

Indiana Jones was terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Can't say that enough. Ugh.

One more thing: enjoy summer. Spend time outside, even just for walks. Drink cool drinks and indulge in a coffee on a cool evening. Don't be afraid to wear sweatshirts and shorts. Take the opportunities to be still -- those summer nights. Listen to the summer, it's got such nice things to say.

Common Sense: Common Sense

I'm getting tired of this expression. Especially in the political realm. I'm not sure who's appealing to Common Sense in all things issue related: The Common Sense Medical Plan! But Common Sense tells me someone certainly is. It's the typical, oversimplified nonsense I expect from politicians.

I'm all for Common Sense. Indeed, we could all benefit more if people used Common Sense a little more generously than they/we do. But when it comes to politicians, to people who run governments, is Common Sense all we're missing and therefore all we need to right any sinking ship?

Common Sense tells me if my car won't start and the gas gauge is on empty: I need more gas! What Common Sense does not tell me, and here's the inherent issue with the expression and application, is that my car will then start. There could be a host of other problems that keep the car from starting. Bad gaskets (whatever those are), lose spark plugs (non-sparking spark plugs?), a bad hose (these are all things in cars right?) could all be reason. Heck, the car might not even have an engine. Common Sense allows you to diagnose, not treat.

So I see these adds that appeal to, in their nuanced, subtle ways, Common Sense tells us if we all could have cheap, affordable, government provided health care, everything would be better. for all of us. No. Common Sense tells us only that it would make sense, for everyone to have health care, not that it would be a panacea for the ironically ailing industry. Or, in the interest of unbias, that drilling in ANWAR will alleviate the gas crunch forever.

We need leaders who know cars. Who know that the car needing gas is just one approach to making sure it's up and running. Give me your platform of vague and nuance and Common Sense, of promises enough to fill a tank. But it's going to take more than a sense of the common to fix problems. It will need that, but you're going to have to know a lot more than how to fill up the tank if you want my vote.

Pedant Coffee Drinking

I fully recognize it's the #1 thing White People Like. If it becomes a stereotype, then, as I say, stereotypes tend to be stereotypes for a reason. And I am your stereotypical young white person who likes coffee. I am now saddened by the recent Starbucks coffee release. For the most part, I could care less when Starbucks releases a new coffee. But when doing so replaces their Breakfast and House Blends, then I am distraught and must form an opinion if it is truly to be the #1 thing I like (#2 for me is assists. I love assists. When I don't make an assist I get mad and break bones.)

It's apropos that they're calling it Pike's Place. For those have not been to Seattle, Pike's Place is the fish market where they throw fish. There's other stuff there too, but for the most part that's the draw. It's the place where tourists go. Cultivated to the masses for their entertainment. Popularized and hyped. This new brew is much of the same. Tastes much like a popular tourist attraction. It should after all since patrons created it. It's a noon cup of coffee. Something warm to drink - but not very good. Very disappointing but not surprising and not worth the $1.85 for a grande. And this is replacing their very good Breakfast Blend and very decent House blend?

NOTE: I would opt for the Komodo Dragon brew if, at 6am, I didn't think of this movie and this character and the fact that referring to this cup of coffee makes me seem a little too ostentatious.

My name is Aaron. I am a coffee pedant.

But hey, it's one of the best parts of waking up (the not best part is actually having Folgers in your cup. That's just terrible coffee).

Gone Since November

Every weekend since November, either the Mrs or me have been working or out of town or had friends or family visiting. Since November. So it has been well nicer than nice to have two consecutive days at home as a family. 

It has been well nicer than nice.

On Kmart Winters

For the most part, snow and winter and cold here in Columbus resembles Kmart more than anything. Dingy, dark, messy and unclean. Inconsistent. Sure, there's an occasional good buy or deal, like there is an occasional snowfall of four or five inches. But it's rare, and it's still only four or five inches. Winter in Columbus can never make up its mind. Never sure what it wants to be. So we meander through a couple inches of snow here, ice here and then 60+ temperatures there.

For a Bostonian, it's depressing. Gone are the epic snowstorms that dump 12-18 inches in one night. Gone are the true and complete blizzards that trap you in your home. Gone are the purest whites and sharpest colds of a Boston winter morning.

This weekend, the city endured its worst storm ever, which ranks like 15th all-time on my list. On Friday night, in the modicum of over-reaction, weathermen were calling it the Blizzard of '08 (complete with the snazzy graphics). There were seven inches on the ground. Now it snowed another seven over night and then three or four throughout the course of Saturday. Not exactly a blizzard (though according to the National Weather people, it fits the definition of a blizzard -- one that mysteriously doesn't take into account snow-fall rate. It's made of the same intelligence as people who put a stake in a baseball player's average while overlooking entirely OBP, SLG, OPS). Growing up we called this a lot of snow.

Sarcasm aside. It was a formidable storm. It dropped a lot of snow. And it was cold and windy and shoveling was not fun. But being out in it was the greatest of joys. Building a snow fort only to realize I forgot how to build them and then remembering how to build one. Letting Isaac crawl and sit and climb over the walls and around the fort and into the fresh snow. Jumping off the front porch into the powder and cold. Much can be said about the havoc these storms bring. How the cities and businesses shut down out of fear. Perhaps, when these moments are recalled and enjoyed, we can posit that cities and businesses shut down out of joy and fun because it is snowing. Because it has snowed. Perhaps.

For whatever this storm was, in perspective historically for the city and in my own experience, it was a true snowstorm. It was beyond the Kmart I had grown accustomed too and took me back into the familiar street corner stores of my youth (you know, like the one at the beginning of School Ties that was actually shot at the store down the street from my church). One defined not by snowfall totals or wind speeds or levels of emergency, but by snowballs and snow angels and snow forts and snow. Fresh, white and powdery.

And you can't put a price on that.

Name Dropping: A Visit That Just Happened

As Ohio is the center of the universe today, you can understand why all of the Networks are in town. Seeing as how I work for the CBS one, we've been inundated over the past few days with network people. Moments ago, I shook Katie Couric's hand. Exchanged names -- as if I didn't know who she was. And a simple little banter with the Evening News host. She's quite pleasant in person. Very nice. Did I mention before that, seeing her walk down the hall while looking over my computer, we made eye contact and exchanged smiles and a wave as she walked by -- inches from my computer. Did I mention that? Because it just happened.

Though I did play a subtle joke on her. Realizing she was coming today, it struck me that underneath my sweater, I was wearing a Boston Red Sox shirt. She used to date the owner of the Sox. So I proudly displayed it and a picture of Isaac in Red Sox garb on the computer behind me during our meet-cute.

My People And Your People: Scheduling

Schedules are funny thing; you hardly ever think about them, take the time to realize your on a schedule. But we are. We operate, not in the banal and mundane effects of adhering to a schedule, out of a routine of which we are mainly unawares. Meals, bathroom breaks, snacks, T.V., commutes, events: they all go according to set times and dates; and so go our own lives. I suppose I always, somewhere, recognized this truism; but it never affected me until this month.

Out of the graciousness of my heart I agreed to shift my work schedule three days a week. Don't see me as too altruistic however when I tell you that the shift allows me to train on directing higher profile things that inevitably give me a greater and newer skill set. Still, I'm working nights for three days. In doing this, I miss my most coveted time with my family.

I suppose I never realized it. How much dinners and baths and story time and the house silences at bedtime really means to me. How special and crucial it is to my makeup. How apart of my daily schedule it is. But for three days a week I miss out on that.

However, I do get the ever-fantastic mornings with Isaac: where he is arguably at his best and funniest and most energetic. Where the car-rides, shopping trips, babysitters, other people, phone calls and meals have not gotten in the way. When he has awoken from whatever fantastic dream danced through his head with laughter and excitement: "It's a new day, Daddy! Good Morning!" That's what it feels like he says to me while he is shaking his crib as I enter the room while the sleep shakes from his eyes. And then he sits down and laughs as I go to pull him from his bed. Just laughs, giggles and smiles. Looks up at me with excitement. This is how we begin the day.

And when I go to work, I look forward to the mornings. But I miss the evenings too. The incessant water-splashing that soaks us; the running around from one activity to another to stave off sleep; the talking and telling us about his day in a language that is so clear to him.

So this schedule goes for a month. And then I will miss the mornings again.

But life, no matter the schedule, is never routine. This I have loved most of all. Despite how routine we need to make things for Isaac and our benefits; how things need to be set in schedules with times and places and calculations. It is in this, this management of life, that the most delightful freedom occurs. Call it a paradox, but it remains. The trick, talent, necessity, I suppose, is to see not the time, but the Time.

And it will make all the difference.

Confession: A Lack of Books

Seems every January I discover the joy of reading anew; before it is sullied and sodded over by the perennial progressions of life. The thirst for flipping pages comes almost as fast as one can digest the previous page. It's onset is voracious and at once satiable provided the author, the work and the coffee is good. And here we are again, January 2008.

A great difficulty -- and perhaps apropos -- is the lack of a bookstore in Grove City. Our previous home proffered at least three within 2 minutes. Now it takes 20+ to the nearest one, a Barnes and Noble just past the boundaries of work. Herein lies the rub: I ventured past my normal exit for the oasis in the desert of my thirst only to leave defeated and deflated. I'm looking for Augustine's Confessions which I have not yet read (City of God, yes; Confessions, no). There was one noticeable copy in the Christianity section, a small print, small bound, fancy smancy covered booklette that could slide into my back pocket. It looked more appropriate for a coffee table or coaster than as the great work of art it is. There were no other copies. Not even the assistance of the clerk could help. Even after I explained to here my snobbishness in wanting a copy bigger than my hand, one I could curl up with and perhaps into if it were big enough, not one that required me to peer at. She understood; I think. But our search on computers and by hand in other sections like Philosophy and Literature found nothing other than that. Then I checked the biography section on a whim -- and there it was: a hardcover, Burgundy coated immaculate copy. I was elated. Until I found out it cost $30.

Now hear my hypocritical stance: I demand bookstores carry books like these and not biographies of Lorraine Bracco or 101 Cups of Spirituality that go great with a side of Chicken soup and fluff (fluff being the stuff on most of the shelves in the Christianity section). But I also demand they be inexpensive and refuse to buy them if they are not, thus decreasing the revenue they account for thus resulting in their not being ordered and stocked.

$30 though? I can get it better somewhere else. Just not in Grove City.

So for now, in the stark coldness of my desert, under this ironic January sun, I am without a book. That is my confession: I feel a little incomplete and starved, wrong even, but unwilling to see past my own palette and wallet to satiate this desire.

On The Holiness of Time

Time is not my friend; Time is not on my side. For the last two months, I have longed for the stretches of time where it just goes by -- where the clock peacefully passes. Instead, our lives have been one thing after another -- some magnificent, others magnified and difficult. But now the proverbial clearing lies under our feet. And time is the view before us.

My mind, previously filled with tasks-at-hands is unwinding, slowly. There are still chores and tasks and requirements, but not enough to fill each and every minute of the day. Turning the pages of a book and sipping hot coffee are not guilt-laden exercises for either of us -- they are pleasures.

There is the laughter I can enjoy on his time with a growing admiration and pride-- a laughter that has changed my life. There are the simple, quiet and tangible moments that are back. The evenings of music and books and conversation. Breakfasts and dinners that thrive. There is a sacredness now in the moments again.

Whether this creates in me further food for thought in this space, I do not promise. I make no resolutions. I give you no hope. I propose no direction other than the one already taken. And while there is much to write about along those lines, I am finding I have little to say for it.

Instead I am finding a time again I had had to forsake for life. Had to put it up and away like the decorations of the seasons. Walking past it in the mornings and evenings and occasionally taking it off the shelf long enough to catch a breath. But now she has come down from being admired and sought to being experienced and felt. Like bagels; like coffee; like meat and potatoes; like worn pages of typeset; like a soft voice echoing into the night; like the laughter and smile of the most innocent among us.

The Chewbacca Defense

It's called the Chewbacca Defense. It's not Socratic in any way. But then again how brilliant was Socrates: He drank the hemlock in the end. Anyway, it accurately sums up the inanity that is college football and the BCS:

Ladies and gentlemen in this supposed BCS controversy, the BCS would certainly like you to believe LSU deserves a BCS Championship appearance and Missouri, Oklahoma, USC, and Hawaii do not. And they make a good case. Heck, I almost felt pity myself! But, ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, I have one final thing I want you to consider. Ladies and gentlemen, look at Chewbacca. Chewbacca is a Wookiee from the planet Kashyyyk. But Chewbacca lives on the planet Endor. Now think about it; that does not make sense!

Why would a Wookiee, an eight-foot tall Wookiee, want to live on Endor, with a bunch of two-foot tall Ewoks? That does not make sense! But more important, you have to ask yourself: What does this have to do with the BCS? Nothing.

Ladies and gentlemen, it has nothing to do with the BCS! It does not make sense! Look at me. I'm trying to explain the BCS, and I'm talkin' about Chewbacca! Does that make sense? Ladies and gentlemen, I am not making any sense! None of this makes sense!

And so you have to remember, when you're in that BCS rankings post deliberatin' and conjugatin' the Emancipation Proclamation, does it make sense? No! Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed masses that want their team in the National Championship game, it does not make sense! If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must allow Missouri, Oklahoma, Hawaii and USC a BCS Championship slot!

The defense rests.

Three Of A Kind

The expression is that it always happens in threes. That, especially, people die in threes. Over the past week, this has been the case in the sports realm with the Blue Jays pitcher Kennedy, Sean Taylor and the first black All-American Bill Wilts. Working in news, I much more prone to mark these stories and see the correlation -- though, I think it may be merely coincidence. Sure it doesn't always happen, but it does more than you think and probably doesn't more than you think too.

But what about people being born in threes. I've got this inkling that November 29th was a favored day in heaven. On this date, C.S. Lewis, Louisa May Alcott and Madeline L'Engle were birthed. That's a lot of genius to be giving out at once, even for God. And a lot of genius in the imagination of children's literature too. It's like it wasn't given out all at once. All of them, most known for the work as a children's author with the ability to transcend the genre to appeal across generations at once.

It was like literature won the lottery that day. Or that there was an overstock, one-day sale on genius. Maybe it's Christmas on November 29th in Heaven. Or would they have Christmas?

Either way, today's greatness happens in threes.

UPDATE:

NOVEMBER 30TH: BIRTHDAYS OF MARK TWAIN AND JONATHAN SWIFT (GULLIVER'S TRAVELS). SERIOUSLY... MAYBE I'M THE ONLY ONE FASCINATED BY THIS.

UPDATE:

PROBABLY.