Dear Stewart,

So, I was checking out the stats on this blog because I wrote something the other day about a conversation I had with my friend from flute choir about her work, which involves the (surprisingly) totally fascinating sea slug. Anyway, I was explaining to her about my readership (about 15-40 people a day), and I wanted her to know that "that many" people would read about our conversation about slugs.

Anyway, I wrote about that conversation, which apparently I can't stop writing about, which reminded me of reading Madeleine L'Engle's books as a little girl; I felt like there was something right underneath the surface of what we were actually saying that was magical but I'm not smart enough (about marine biology, about slugs, about anything) to know what it was. I saw a glimmer of something shiny and beautiful but I'm too weak to pull it out. She was talking about how they analyze the slugs to get their genetic markers and the way they do it using light and color, which translate into numbers for computers. I was really interested in what she was saying even though the science and stuff was a little (a lot!) over my head. It could be just that I enjoy listening to this woman talk. Don't you know people like that? I'm sure I would not be one of them!

Sometimes by not fully understanding something, I get a much better (though totally imaginary) sense of what it is, and I think about it for much longer than I might if it was crystal clear to me. I've been thinking about slugs and colors and the chromatic color thing she mentioned (like a chromatic scale? I have no idea how those two things relate, if they do) where the colors become numbers for almost a week already. That said, I also know that I can't make any definitive statements about anything because I make about 95% of what I think I know up.

It's kind of how this blog works.
It's kind of how a lot of things work for me.

Anyway, I totally digressed there, didn't I.

While I was checking the stats, I saw that this blog had gotten a hit from France, where, I believe, you are right now. I was just wondering if it was actually you... or my friend, Terry Kaufman, who lives there. I like Terry, I've known him since elementary school, he's been a friend to me and my mom and he's a very kind person and I think it's cool that he married a French woman and gets to live in Paris now. But I really hope it's you.

Bonjour Stewart! Tu es mon homme préféré en vert!

Je t'aime,
Irene