The first video, I ever saw on MTV, was not Radio Killed the Video Star.  No that would have meant that the small little village I lived in, during the 1980s would have actually had a cable system.  During the early 80s I am 99% positive that we didn't have any kind of cable.  Even when cable did make it into the valley, my parents didn't get it.  Back then it didn't make sense to get cable.  The cable system, just rebroadcast the the three major networks, and my Dad had a huge mast antenna on bolted onto a length of pipe, that got us two of the three networks.  I grew up, basically not knowing any of the shows that were on ABC, which from what I know now, really wasn't a loss, as NBC was where it was at.

The first video I ever saw on MTV, was not even in the little village where I grew up and lived until I was 32, it was in Northeastern Ohio, at my uncle's place to be exact.  I can not remember what I watched after Glory Days by Bruce Springsteen, probably  because the memory was clouded by anger because according to my Dad, "if he wanted to listen to music he'd turn on the radio".

As usual, I am not sure why I thought of Glory Days and that first video.  I sit here and think, what year would that have been.  It could have been 1990, that was the last trip we made as a family to Ohio, but I am confident it was before that.  I guess I could narrow it down to between 1985 and 1990.  According to Wikipedia the video first aired June 1985.  We vacationed last week of July, so I'll say it was July 1985.  Memory is a funny goddamn thing.

I've been having dreams.  None the past two days that I can remember, but I am sure I am still dreaming.  One's memory of a dream is also really messed up.  When having the dream I remember every damned detail.  Right after I wake up, if I don't run the dream through my mind, I start to lose major details.  This latest round of dreams have been weird. I am either in high school or college, in an apartment with several room mates.  I'm trying to accomplish something.  Pass a test.  Get out of building.  Walk up a hill.  I am not sure what that means.

I listen to the Writer's Alamanac on my Shuffle and two of this week's episodes have stuck in my mind.  One was the remark about Tolkien when he wrote on a paper he was grading   "In a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit" and he did not know quite sure what that meant.  I've had moments like that, I guess.  The second was the little tidbits on Faulkner and how he had gotten a D in English.  I am not sure why these two stories have been in my conscience, it's not like I have any pretentious thoughts that I'm a good writer.  I am not.  I sat at my desk for 15 minutes before I could start this whole mess.

In my mind, and I am sure in yours as well, I have ideas, wonderful ideas.  Ideas for movies, for books, for TV shows.  Sometimes I have to take a break from work, and scribble something down.  Sometimes I have a vivid and interesting dream that I form into a story as the day progresses.  Last week, I had a bunch of dreams and when I was able to get home I had written pages and pages based on what I had dreamt about.  I don't have what Faulkner and Tolkien and other have, and that's an interested third party.  No editors, no colleagues, no soul mates.  I participate in NaNoWriMo every year.

The hard part about writing, is at least for me, translating the wonderful ideas in my head into words that flow, words that make sense, words that tell a story that other people want to read, over and over again.  Sometimes I think maybe a novel is not the medium I should be focusing on.  Perhaps it should be poetry.  Or music.  Or . . .

In my senior year of high school, I was in year IV of French.  It was a small class, since most people high school at least rarely took four years of any langauge.  Most took 2 of one and 1 or 2 of another.  The way our high school was set up, 9th grade was still in the Junior high building, and as such had a different teacher than the high school.  This woman was older and not at all attractive.  I only mention this because the high school French teacher was hot, and at most 6 or 7 years older than we were.  Oh and she was hot.  It was because of this dual oddity that I was the only guy in French IV.  I was mediocre at best.  I had survived four years,so I am sure I wasn't too bad.  One of our yearlong projects was to keep a weekly journal, written entirely in French.  I can only remember one topic I discussed on a regular basis and that was the crush I had on a classmate.  Surpsisingly although she was tough as nails when it came to grading and always speaking in French, she was, well, she listened, and provided feedback.  Lately I've been thinking of that journal.  The journals were not returned to us, after graduation.  She still works at the same high school, and from reading the class description she still requires a journal for fourth year students.  I should send an email, to see if on some rare chance she still has the journal.  It's been 16 years, so I doubt she does.

_{I am in a writing mood, so if anyone would like to have a penpal, I'm game.  To my current penpal:  Be on the look out for a card, or something soon.}