When I was a child, I was obsessed with dictionaries, encyclopedias, maps, genealogies, drawing imaginary floor plans for imaginary houses that imaginary families (where I got to name all the children! exotic names like "Zachariah" and "Lexine" and "Callum" and "Opal!")lived in. I also nursed an obsession with Lewis Carroll and all things Alice (Lidell, that is - the inspiration for Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass).

Four pieces of trivia that have stuck by me:

a)Alice did not have long blond hair. She had short brown hair, but the illustrator didn't think she was romantic-looking enough. (Remember, this was Victorian England!)

b)Lewis Carroll (Charles Dodgson "in real life") proposed to Alice when she was of age (18 or 19, maybe?), but she turned him down in favor of mild royalty related to Queen Victoria.

c)LC had a thing for the number 42. (so do I, perhaps because of this and perhaps not).

d)When it had been a particularly good day, he said in his diary "I mark this day with a white stone."

The last one is the most important. I have not been marking enough days with white stones.

This morning starts out both scary and promising.

Scary, because my vision is getting worse daily and when I woke up I could not move my arms for about ten minutes. This most likely means more weeks lost to taper and adjustment. And it is grey outside, very, very grey.

Promising, because I have already fed myself with oatmeal and brown sugar and half and half, written a few crappy sentences that I am excited of leading somewhere, and re-discovered that long-lost, perfectly poetic Compact Disc of Februaries Past - Jeff Buckley's posthumously released "Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk." What that man can do with a 4track and a guitar...