We now return you to...

...your regularly scheduled programming.

Some of you may know that at times I am a Reluctant Insomniac. Reluctant to the extent that, unlike Benji, I love my sleep. With the passion of an addict. More importantly I love feeling rested.

Thus when I can't sleep I usually revert to either reading or writing. Often the writing involves this blog. Goodness knows you all have played victim to many an ill-written post spawned from my sleep deprived mind.

That having been said, it was a bit of an irritation when on the Tuesday of Thanksgiving break I found myself lying there unable to shut off my mind. And no computer...
But alas, being the kind of person I am (undaunted by sitting outside at 1 in the morning in my nightgown), I put on shoes, two coats, grabbed the bedspread and headed out-of-doors.
Let me tell you, it was an absolutely gorgeous night. Cold, but gorgeous. Funny how easy it is to forget some things. After living my entire life in that same place it was still something of a surprise to see just how many stars were visible. And as far as visibility goes, it was pretty good, but not remarkable by any stretch. Here you can see like 4 stars...on a good night.
I stayed out for quite some time, laying on the trunk of my car (that's actually quite comfortable for stargazing.) Even saw a couple of tiny, leftover Leonid meteors. Orion rising in the east, the Big Dipper setting in the north.

Some people say that they look at the sky and feel tiny or insignificant. I don't. I don't think it's ever made me feel that way. It's spectacular and amazing and enormous and impossible to wrap your mind around yes, but it's still packed full of possibilities and mysteries and new things and, as cliched as this sounds, untouched frontiers waiting to be explored.

To wrap things up, I really don't think that there is any better time or place to reconcile yourself with whatever might be consuming your mind then when you're completely hidden in darkness, looking out over the whole of the universe.
It's glorious, that's what it is.