(no subject)

One major source of stress the last week has been my complete inability to find my passport. Knowing where my passport is is not usually something I find necessary, but as I'm getting on a plane to Chicago on Monday, the situation was becoming rather urgent.

Bedroom was turned virtually upside-down by yesterday morning, and I was panicky. (There may have been a phone call to my mother in which I actually called her "Mummy".) My mother and best friend, who are better than I could ever hope to deserve (I try, though, and they don't seem too fed up with me), came over yesterday and found it in about ten minutes, in a bag in the downstairs closet.

Of all the places! I have no idea why it was there, but I am infinitely relieved that it was, and infinitely grateful to be surrounded by friends and family who are more organized in meatspace* than I am.

And so I'm heading to Chicago on Monday, for seven nights of gleeful, geeky, joyous adventure. I can't wait. Oddly, I'm particularly excited that I'm flying Porter Air via Billy Bishop airport, for two reasons. A) New airport! Going through Toronto without having to deal with Pearson! Named after Canada's top ace pilot from World War One! and B) I hear the Porter Air passenger lounge at Billy Bishop has free cookies.

*My virtual life is exquisitely organized. I have all of four icons on my desktop.

Life on the Moon

When I was very wee (we're talking two years old or so) I had a series of kids' science books, one of which was called "Is there Life on the Moon?". The answer the book gave, along with a very basic explanation of how life worked and what it needed and why the Moon doesn't meet those needs, was that there had BEEN life on the Moon, a few times, very briefly, and that it had come from Earth. Accompanying that answer was a picture of Neil Armstrong, on the Moon.

I used to stare at it for ages. My first complete sentence, inspired by that picture, was "I want to go to the Moon".

I've never stopped wanting that. Not once. Not ever. I will never stop wanting that. Such dreams are made possible because people, Armstrong among them, worked and risked and dared to make them possible, and Armstrong, for me (as well as many others I'm sure) was the face of those dreams, even if he was faceless behind his helmet's face shield in the photo that inspired mine.

Here's to him.