Which is Also Equal to Four SQUARED when added...

Two blogs in one day. Because I'm prolific like that. Because blogs should be in mostly written form after all. Because work is slow, as usual.

This should be a tremendously lucky day because 4 is my favorite number and there are two of them in today's date, and FOUR of them if you divide the 8 in "2008" by two, which I do, which makes FOUR lucky fours, which is even luckier since there are four of them.

So far: I've woken up late. Had a fore-head-banging-desk day at work. Ate a yucky lunch from the work cafeteria because Gramps is out of town. Got a headache. And grumped about the rain.

I loved being four. It should be a lucky number. It MUST be a lucky number. I distinctly remember lying on my stomach as a four-year-old, looking at a Disney Fairy Tale book and listening to the story via audio tape, which chimed when I was supposed to turn the page. I remember looking at the book, and looking at the tape recorder, and hearing the satisfying chime, and considering my glorious young self, and thinking, "It is GOOD to be four." Every time I meet a four-year-old now, I tell them, "That's my favorite age! I LOVED being four." They usually return a look that's quizzical; dubious. "You don't know the painful throes of my adolescence, lady." Oh, but I did love being four. The toe-headed thrill of it.

The times now when I feel most like me, when I feel like the living, not just the breathing: are semi-four-year-old moments. They consist of bubble-blowing, and stair rail sliding, and skipping when I walk, and tucking flowers behind my ears. They are when I notice berries on bushes, and mushrooms on trees, and when I imagine pickles having thoughts, and wear twirly skirts.

I am 24 now, which is very adult. 4 times 6. 8 times 3. 12 times 2. I am divisible by six numbers now, and it takes a big interger to accomplish that feat. Sooo many smaller quavering intergers beneath me now.

I almost missed the whole thing though. I was born seven minutes after Leap Year, Feb. 29th, which only comes once every 4 years. The doctor was late. The doctor was LATE, and they told my mom, "Don't push! Don't push!" So she held me in, "ARRGHHHH!!" and I slipped out seven minutes after the stroke of midnight. On good ol' March 1st. A date which comes every year, just like clock-work.

If I had been born 8 (4 divided by 2) minutes earlier, I would just have had my 6th birthday.

I should have been born on Leap Year. I sort of ACT sometimes, like I am 6. That would have been a wonderfully, fittingly quirky part to me. I feel.

But 6 is still two years older than the luckiest year of all.

You can't stop the time, see. Even when moving along in 4-year-chunks, it still rolls forward, like a heavy millstone down a hill, gathering momentum. It still drags me foward, into silly grown-up jobs, into new awkward transitions, into fear of wrinkles and facial sagging. Older people get serious. I like the not-serious moments.

I think: if we get to choose an age to be in heaven: I would like to be four. So long as I got to keep the wisdom of 77. I would love to have the eternal heart of a 4-year-old. I would run fast down clouds and then skid and slide in my heavenly socks.

The other night I was at a restaurant with my friend Alexis, and I asked her, "If you could be stuck on a desert island with any of the people at these tables, which table of people would you chose?" (Thank you Ross.)

It only took her a second to answer: "The one with guy and the kid," she said.

"Really?" I asked, in a shamefully adult moment. "Why? A kid couldn't help with survival things as much. I would have thought you would look for the person with the strongest forearms or something. Pick the one that looked like he carried around a leatherman. Or something."

"A kid would be so good to have around!" she said. "Kids have a way of bringing humor to situtions, when you can't see it. They're so goofy. And they see things in different ways. It would be cool to have that kind of mentality around, in those situations." I realized she was right. In a completely different way, having a kid on a desert island would be incredibly practical, and survivally helpful. Alexis, this is reason #16 why we are friends. 4 times 4. 4 squared. It's a good number for that reason.

It's unfortunate that today hasn't been luckier so far. Because 4/4/2008 is just such a nice day of life. We're closing in on 5 o'clock now though. And it's almost the weekend. And that is a very lucky thing, even though it's not quite special enough to solidify the 4/4/2008 as lucky a day as it should be.

But I've already found the end of the rainbow. And the 24-year-old (4 times 6, etc.)knows that not everything works just the way it ought to.

But make no mistake.

4/4/2008 OUGHT to be tremendously lucky.