Speed of Light and Other Constants

First, I must apologize for the SNAFU with my 100th post; somehow, it's fitting, for me, to have such a dramatic 100th. Nothing I do is short in the drama department, I'm not exactly where this originates.. probably from my being very dramatic. Anyhoo, when I initially posted the Kevin Costner post, it was picked up by a couple fan sites that have major worldwide exposure and it quickly overwhelmed my sense of a 'private showing' to my loyal blog readers. Naive? Sure.

But the more important moment of clarity I experienced was the why. Why in the world was I prompted to post something I knew, deep down, would generate some attention? Even if I promised some readers, (so many posts back that there was no hope they'd remember) that I'd tell that story?

Because I'm an attention hound, always have been, and always working on counteracting this. I'm the youngest of three children, in fact..my siblings are seven and ten years my senior. Making me the doted-upon, attention-lavished, never taken seriously child that has always been viewed as "the baby" in my family.

Ever since I could remember, I would struggle to get a word in edgewise, in heated family dinner table debates (normally centered on physics, quantum mechanics, and other useless useful Laws of the Universe. I appreciate my Dad making us think. I really do, especially since he'd never give us the answer. He made you think.

If you're standing on the end of an accelerating train, and you have a flashlight, and there is someone out in space with another flashlight, shining the light towards you, and you both have a clock, and you look down and read the clock at the same time...

When I was mostly concerned with getting a boy to notice me, or keeping all my friends in middle school, I was hardly worried about what Einstein thought, or how he proved light as a constant. But that is what we talked about. Ideas. Theories. Everything is relative. It's hard to get attention as the youngest in that mix.

Even now, as a 30-something adult, lavishing my own attention upon my firstborn, my beloved mini-masterpiece of a Toddler, I see him hamming it up for the crowd when we're out to lunch. Or showing off in Hola Baby spanish class. Or parading around with the drum in music class. I see the twinkle in his baby eye when he gets the teacher to notice him, flashes his toothy grin for the camera.

I was the star in the school's 2nd-grade play, Peter Pan, when I was too little to understand showmanship (or, was I?) The entire family went berserk with the idea that I was bound to be an actress after that performance. And maybe I've been playing that role ever since.