I sat down to write this morning at about 9 am and just as I put a title on the page, I decided to check my statistics. I showed 365 unique visitors at that point for this morning. It seemed like an omen. Y’all hear that eerie music, or is it just me? That

I have a strange mood on today. Maybe it’s because the day is overcast. The clouds are hanging low after yesterday’s tornadoes. It feels oppressive.

Perhaps it’s because of that recent birthday (turning 54 made me realize I’m more than halfway done). Or finding out that my cholesterol is through the roof (which will definitely shorten that time)!

It could have been the theme of Scribbit’s recent Write Away contest: “The Next Twenty Years.” I had to realize that there may not be twenty years. I was going to write for it, but was overcome with the sadness of that thought. I’m not sure I want to live past a hundred, but I have a lot to do before I expire. Scribbit’s Write Away theme for April is “Going Home,” and it works on my mood, too. Dang. Maybe you can write for that one.

The mood could have been bought on by having lunch with my dear friend, Cathy, yesterday. We had a great time, but I left realizing how much I miss getting to see her regularly.

I know that the mourning dove who took up residence outside my window isn’t helping matters! Have you ever heard the lonesome cry of that bird? I don’t have to work up crocodile tears when I hear it. Click this link, if you don’t know the sound.

I had hoped to write a funny post for April Fool’s Day, but it’s not going there. I’m all caught up in memories. I’m thinking about friends, acquaintances, enemies…all the people who have touched my life. For me, it’s the people in my life that fulfill me.

How often do we tell them how we feel about them?

I visited Schmutzie yesterday and read a few of the posts that she has done in her “x 365″ series. She got me thinking about all this (dagnab it). Do you know about the”x365 project?” Here’s what the website says:

Dan Waber turned 40 on January 12th, 2006, and wanted to mark the occasion in some positive fashion. So he got this crazy idea (not an unusual event) to write 40 words (no more, no less) every day for a year, and each day he’d write about a different person (in no particular order) who touched his life. But not just anyone, it has to be someone he’s actually met in person, someone whose name he still remembers.

Wow. I started remembering people. I started a list. I decided that I need to chronicle the people who have touched me (for good or ill). The “recipe” for the posts are your age=your number of words. Hmmm. That gives me 54 words. Not much for a storyteller. I thought I should wait to begin it on an auspicious date, like New Year’s or my birthday. But, then I read Jamie’s post today at Duward Discussion and read that April 1st was once the new year. The stars are aligned it seems.

So, it begins. But not on this blog. I started a little Blogspot blog to house it. Blogger is stupid! You can read about that in this rant. My new WordPress blog is hereYou can read it, if you’d like, but I won’t be allowing comments. It’s really just for me.

It’s my way of making peace with my memories. I’ll say the things I wish I had said to people long gone from my life, and to people in it now.

So, I’m committing to posting 54 words a day for a year (which isn’t as easy as it sounds).

Talk about an “April Fool.”