Today is allegedly the longest day (as opposed to night) of the year. Last night marked a level up for me, five to six (Yay!).

Two of the four write-ups on the "Creamy and Cool" nodelet are mine today so that's cool (and somewhat creamy).

I don't often do daylogs but it seems like a good time to do a bit of "random thought" kind of noding and what better way?

As long as I can remember, I've loved reading. I used to dream of being in a public library when it closed for the day and having the entire night to read.

My first grade school was in a little town called Mukilteo on the Puget Sound in Western Washington State. Growing up there was a bit like growing up in a Norman Rockwell painting.

We had one little drug store, one little grocery store, and one little library. I never got locked in it overnight but I did walk past it on my way to school and back.

Soon I started checking out books on my way home from school. I liked the Science Fiction and Fantasy collections because they had weird pictures on the cover. The librarian would let me check them out but disapproved, saying, "Aren't these a little bit old for you?"

I didn't think they were and a lot of times I didn't understand the stories but that didn't matter. If a book wasn't available I'd read whatever was, the cereal box, the telephone directory (remember those?).

Mukilteo also had a public beach with a lighthouse and a ferry terminal and both were easy walking distance from my house and school. The beach was rocky and had little crabs under the rocks and the ferry terminal had a restaurant next to it that served big crabs to people.

When it rained, which it does A LOT in that part of the country, I would often occupy myself with creating dams to direct and hold the water in the ditches alongside streets for hours. Then I would break the dam and watch the water rush through. Getting wet didn't seem to bother me much, back then. I was having too much fun.