Did you get your autograph?

Writing a song is damn near impossible on the first shot. Usually it comes to me while I'm like humming something else on the subway and since I'm apparently living in the 80s and refuse to get an iPhone, I have no way of recording the little diddle. Actually, come to think of it, my ramshackle phone does have a recorder, but I've never been one to sing on the train.

I bring that up because that's how I felt lying (lay, lie, lain, whatever) in bed last night, thinking of what to name this cockamamey thing and debated getting OUT of bed to write the idea on a postit. Milkorwhiskey may someday make a reappearance, but for now, I'm thinking of my grandpa, and so a spinoff of Landslide lyrics wins out. Point is, it's also damn near impossible to be original anymore. I mean totally original.

My taste has never screamed original though, and I don't say that in a "I'm so hip, I set trends by rolling out of bed" way, I just mean for someone who laughs at practically everything, I don't laugh at what everyone else laughs at. The most poignant part of Slumdog Millionaire (saw it last night) was not the kiss at the end, or even the reunion with the singing boy (though that was a close second). It was the flashback at the end to the autograph. If we could all be so brave and

guileless

as Jamal. How many of us would jump through human waste to greet our idol? How many would risk seeming totally insane to try to get what we want?

Our waitress at the diner last night (remember, still in NJ) had to be in her 70s and she asked me if I was "the sister or the mommy" (good lord), but after a bit, she said "When we were kids it took FOREVER for Christmas to come around the next year! Now Christmas was last month." You never stop being young, it just so happens your body does.

Speaking of young, this is one of my favorite pictures from London, where we studied abroad. I'll never forget this night. I don't talk to the subjects much anymore, but I can still feel my heart racing, running to take this picture.