back to business

"I don't know where the sunbeams end/and the starlights begin/it's all a mystery..
- The Flaming Lips, 'Fight Test.'

So the other day I was out walking our dog. I walk our dog each morning at roughly 5:15 a.m.; I don't usually wake up until sometime around 6:20 a.m. Actually, most days it's more like he's walking me. But that's all beside the point. Two days ago we were walking and it was still dark out. Suddenly, I looked up and there was an unidentified object in the sky and coming toward us. It could have been an airplane, but I knew it wasn't. The speed wasn't right. Frankly, I didn't know what it was, so we both just stood there, looking up. I remember thinking, 'Yes! Something to blog about!'

But then, as happens so often, reality stepped in. It turned out it WAS an airplane. The angle must have been funky or something. Actually, I think it was the flight path that confused me. Planes flying over our neighborhood are usually on a southeast heading. This was flying more...west to slightly northeast. Anyway, the point -- if there is one here -- is that I realized then that a lot of my waking hours are spent trying to find something to blog about. You could say I'm a beachcomber, of sorts. And on that note, that serves so well as a natural segue, let's add that song to the list -- 'Beachcombing' (#228) by Mark Knopfler and EmmyLou Harris. Then let's roll with 'Fight Test' (#229) for the song after that.

You know, all this talk of planes and UFO's calls to mind a poem I'm about to write that's based on a real experience in my life. This one is really true, believe me!

Most dreams are roundtrip
I was lying in bed
one morning
when I heard the drone
of a plane
overhead.
I let my head
scroll across the pillow
so I could see the alarm clock.
It read: 7:47.
I thought about that
for a little bit,
then glanced away
and thought about it
a little more.
When I looked
back at the clock
again,
it was 7:48
and I noticed then
that the plane was gone.

I wonder to this very day,
was it all a dream?