Sweet Lethargy

Well, we're heading into a long week-end and I've run out of things to write about. I have a cold and haven't felt like skateboarding lately, and I haven't been out on any undercover temp-work missions either. The cats have been catching a lot of mice and shrews. Every night it seems I get woken up by a feline excitedly parading his latest catch through my room. At night, the crickets chirp in the grass, and by day the cicada are buzzing in the trees.

I've been reading sci-fi novels, relaxing with the cats in the back yard. Aliens and other worlds, space ships and pioneers; it's all so romantic. As I kid I lapped these tales up like literary ice cream, and I still like to pay a visit to the land of speculative fiction from time to time (isn't all fiction speculative? That's what makes it fiction!). I still believe that there must be other forms of life in the universe besides the earth-born variety, and sooner or later we are bound to cross paths with at least one of them.

Maybe they will be like E.T., maybe like the monsters from some bad movie, or maybe they will resemble toasters with octopus legs. Maybe they will appear to us as reflections of our own unrecognized selves. Perhaps we won't even notice them at first--heck, they could be here already!

Keep your eyes peeled this long week-end for anything unusual, and remember the lesson of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, that music is the universal language. If in doubt about how to greet a stranger from another world, just whistle or hum a cheerful ditty.


Alien Identification Chart