Things I find mysterious about living in the middle of nowhere:

� A guy named Hickrod is running for county coroner (I�m not even sure if it�s in my county, as we live near the intersection of several). Apparently this position is hotly contested, for he has taken over large billboards by the highway: HICKROD. HICKROD. HICKROD.

� The park district worker who kept referring to our son as �your biddy.�

� A lecture on hostas draws a massive crowd.

� Live Bait vending machines by the side of the road

� The house with the sign in front that reads: �WANTED: white deer antlers�

� The large number of houses with tree stumps by their front doors carved into bears, paws raised like the Japanese good luck kitty

� Lawn geese

I was surfing itunes last night and inexplicably clicked on a link for Sting�s �Fortress Around Your Heart.� I�m not sure why I did it. Boredom and procrastination, mainly. I�ve never been much of a fan of Sting�s post-Police oeuvre (you�ve got to love that word � so many vowels), but I had an instant flashback to a Model U.N. conference at Georgetown my freshman year in college (Why,yes, I AM the geek eternal. Thanks for asking!).

While music is a very common trigger for such things, the moment it flashed to was, well, nothing really. Just being there. I have virtually no recollection of the event itself, except that I was 18 and feeling kind of like a grown-up. I have never had such a physical reaction to a memory trigger. I felt it with my whole body. It was as if the real world blacked out for a moment and I was actually standing in the Georgetown Marriott in my borrowed suit. Like a rip in the space-time continuum allowed me to fall back into my own past for the length of a 30-second song preview. Creepy.

Also creepy were the bizarre dreams I had last night, dreams so obviously related to reality that I was actually chastising myself in my dream for such a profound lack of creativity.

The obvious solution is another cup of coffee.

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