Sometimes when I'm falling asleep I compose extremely articulate, well-reasoned and impassioned blog entries in my head. In these midnight compositions, I am extraordinarily logical, precise, and able to express myself with astonishing wit. Then I fall asleep, forget whatever it was that I was thinking that impressed me so much. That's one reason why my entries here can sometimes seem a little scattered. Because they are. And also because I type and delete, type and delete, type and delete until I end up with a hodgepodge of connected yet oddly disparate thoughts for which I may not have made sure that all the tenses and verb endings match.

This is another of those times. There have been many topics lately about which I'd like to say a word or two but lately sitting down in front of the computer drains me of virtually half of my IQ. So instead of a full entry expressing any one thought, I will share a whole bunch of random thoughts with you. Listing them out will mean less tense matching and that can only be a good thing as far as my composition skills are concerned.

1) What is up with Terry Gross? I know I've written about this before, but is there anyone out there but me who has trouble following her sometimes? Tonight I listened to a replay of an interview with an actor I've never heard of (fair enough, I'm quite open about the fact that I never know any of the people over whom everyone else is gaga, actor-wise) and she was asking these questions that just kept going round and round and round with all kinds of non-sequitors and tangents and blah blah blah. Sometimes they finished with a "where are you from" which made me wonder why she just couldn't ask that in the first place and other times she finished talking and there was an awkward pause as if the guy was really had absolutely no idea what on earth he was supposed to say. Lately I've been tuning in just to see if she'll let me down in the meandering-to-the-point department and she never does.

2) I would be among the happiest women in the universe if I could impress upon all and sundry that, sometimes (just sometimes), Mapquest, Rand McNally or msn or yahoo or whatever mapping system you're carrying around in your phone/car/GPS/whatnot, is not always correct. In Charlottesville, our house was not mapped and no driving directions were available from any of these sources, although our driveway did appear in the satellite shots. Our current house likewise is not mapped correctly - entering our street address will result in the offer of an "alternative" location that is actually almost two miles away, on the other side of two major arteries. Knowing this as I do, last week I e-mailed five families thorough and very clear directions to our place so that they could find their way to a Friday morning gathering. I even included the warning "please do not rely on mapquest, msn or other directions system - directions to our house are incorrect and will put you in another town several miles away". What do you think happened? I spent a great deal of time on the phone Friday morning coaching people to put down their printouts from whatever service and listen to what I was telling them.

"Yes, yes, I understand that you were directed to take a right. However, you must take a left. Yes, I'm sure. Yes, I know that's what the Internet said. Yes, exactly, that is strange. Still, would you mind terribly taking a left from where you are right at this moment? Yes, I'm sure that the remainder of the directions are incorrect as well. Yes, I have experienced this. Yes, I know how frustrated you must be."

And so on. Most of us know that we cannot always believe what we read in periodicals and know to exercise all kinds of restraint of endorsement in the area of broadcast media, so why is it so hard to convince people that every now and again the Internet is wrong?

3) I would swear that Catherine Zeta-Jones used to be older than me. Then we were the same age. Now she's younger than me. I find this odd. You?

4) I am having a terrible time finding unscented dark red pillar candles. They're always Cinnamon or Exotica or Cherry Berry but never just regular old red candles. I asked the Pier 1 lady where she recommended I might look and she said, "Nowhere, if it's not Christmas." Charming, don't you think. I'm going to have to make a point of spending lots more money there. Not.

5) I'm reading MaryJane Butter's, ahem, Ideabook, Cookbook, Lifebook and don't think much of it, but I will say this: I am so making plum butter this summer.

6) I am a little embarrassed about how much time I spend worring about women whose blogs I read but whom I have never actually met in person. If someone lets, say, five days pass between posts I get a little panicky on her behalf (for some reason, I don't read any blogs written by men, at least not on a regular basis). I know from my own experience that sometimes blogging just gets away from you and goodness knows I'm not all that great about connecting the threads from one post to the next but when I'm all anxious to hear if someone got into grad school, has become pregnant, sold her house, kicked out her partner or whatever I just get a little jumpy, you know?

Today was a lovely day which we celebrated by taking the kids to the park and then shopping for new cell phones. What did you do?