Yesterday in creative writing we watched The Beatle's First U.S. Visit, and I was thinking how strange it must feel to be involved with a common American experience. The Beatles stepping off that plane, for instance. What's it like to have a personal experience of that, to be standing in the crowd to see them with your own eyes? To be able to say "I was there." And it strikes me how accessible "making history" is in New York -- the Beatles stepping off that plane at JFK, and all that. New York seems to be a place today where everything is happening all the time. So many people, so many events. Bands every night. Shows at places like Radio City Music Hall. Trying to imagine what it'd be like to live there is overwhelming. Maybe one day I will. And imagining what it's like to grow up there is something else entirely.

But when that happens -- when you witness history being made, do you know that it's happening? Would I even know if I'd witnessed it?

At the very least the documentary was very entertaining. Mr. Beitelman has showed us so many things in that class -- The Civil War (Ken Burns), The Beatles First U.S. Visit, and 2001: Space Oddessy later this semester. It will be one of those classes I talk about forever.

Today we sat at the table, talking about the Beatles for half an hour. And T.J., Mr. Beitelman, talked about how he thought the reason they were such a success is because Paul had this tendency to write pop -- that it was very much the way he was wired. But John was into all this strange, wild stuff, a raw sound that you could sense from him in songs like "Twist and Shout" -- his yelling instead of singing. And that the Beatles were like that in general -- even during songs like "Love Me Do," even buttoned up in their suits, they had that "wild hair" about them, literally and figuratively -- they were always a little off beat. And the tension between those two music worlds (Paul's and John's) created really interesting music.

I wish there was a whole class on the phenomena surrounding and history of the Beatles. I'd sign up.

Needless to say, my obsessive Beatles listening is resurfacing. Last night I pulled out "Meet the Beatles" on vinyl, and tonight I popped my massive-mp3-compilation-of-every-Beatles-song-ever into my stereo (thank you eric!). Right now I'm stuck on "Magical Mystery Tour."

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Tonight Carolyn and I went out to Moe's for dinner. Each of us had a "free burrito" on our yellow Moe's cards, and I wanted her to come by to see my new Philips stereo (that everyone has been hearing about non-stop ever since I got it for my birthday). Carolyn can appreciate the presence of a good stereo in someone's life, what it means. We listened briefly to Bob Dylan, thumbing through an Urban Outfitters catalog, dicussing the difference between hot girls and hot guys -- how guys can be hideously unnattractive, wear nice clothes, and still be hot, but the same isn't true for girls.

Finally, we drove to Moe's in the rain, break lights bleeding onto the wet pavement. We each had an Art Vandalay with black beans -- it is the reason, after all, that any of us eat at Moe's to begin with.

I feel like we connect.

There was a little boy in a booth down from ours that kept turning around in his seat to look at me. He was wearing plaid shorts and cowboy boots. He had strawberry blonde hair. And so, in the fasion of my sister, I stuck my tongue out at him the next time our eyes met. (Maybe one day you and I will be in the same restaurant, and I'll stick my tongue out at your little boy in cowboy boots.) He smiled and watched me with big eyes, hiding the rest of his face behind his father's sleeve. His father was facing the opposite direction. We hid our faces and smiled and watched each other, until finally his dad led him to the soda machine, refilled his kid-size drink, and they left. It led to a discussion about baby-sitting.

As I was taking Carolyn home, the conversation drifted to people we've known and loved and lost. "I think that's why we get along so well. We miss peole," she said. We do miss people. It hit home. And I talked about my ideal readers -- this concept that I keep coming back to -- who they are. Do you know who you are, ideal reader?

My whole life lately is letter-writing. It's like passing out journal entries and records of my days so and making other people keep up with them (will they get lost in a car? Will they fall, unnoticed, into a garbage can?). It's like keeping a journal that I can't ever read over, and that I won't ever fill.