I Can Write in November?

I've spent this month preparing myself for excitement I will never be able to experience. I've had my ear to the baseball rumor mill, loving the fact that the Orioles have signed the best left-handed reliever on the market, but loathing the reality that the Orioles won't make the playoffs for another decade. I've gobbled up video game news, despite the fact that I won't buy a new system until next year (and would be arrested if I even tried to get a PS3 over here now. I think the legal problem is that you're not allowed to ship soulless products into the EU). And I've traveled to Scotland, breathing the beautiful clean air of the highlands only to have my oxygen-filled heart stolen by an unattainable siren named Jamie singing at an Edinburgh bar.

Jamie is a girl by the way, not a guy. The Orioles' new pitcher is named Jamie, too, but he is a guy. It's confusing, but the one I would kiss is the girl, unless the guy threw a really wicked screwball with extra mustard on it like six times in a row. That would just be too cool. Anyway, I got Jamie the singer's autograph on my train ticket stub, so you can check the curliness of the letters for yourself and know that she's a girl. Here, look, I'll take it out right now and show it to you...

(The room lights go out)

Uh oh. I think my residence might be having one of those London electricity problems you hear about in action dramas set in the near future when environmental terrorists blow up local power plants to save the Earth.

(The window lights up. My plant and the rabbit who lives under it are gone. Instead I see the British countryside in motion, as if I'm driving by it.)

That's odd, but now that there's some light I can at least get that ticket out and show you how not gay I am...

(Acoustic guitar begins to strum.)

Who's there? If you're a thief, I need to warn you that you're in danger! I'm taking a self-defense class for women next week. And I looked at some pretty sharp knives in a store last week.

(A girl's voice begins to sing. It's some kind of Norah Jones-ish song, mixed with Radiohead beats and a Coldplay sentiment. It doesn't sound at all like Anna Nalick, that one-hit hack who teased us all with her momentarily-low jeans.)

Jamie the Scottish vocalist? Is that you?

(Passing by the countryside
Ticket in hand, but nowhere to go.
Thinking about the sheep on the road
Wondering who they see and what they know.)

It is you! I think about animals a lot, too! Like, there's this rabbit who always sits under my plant Planty. I mean, he disappeared when this surreal experience started, but he's here a lot. I really do like animals, though. I had some pets and stuff.

(Do they know the future?
Do they know the past?
Do they know the present
And how long it will last?)

I took a class on time travel once. It centered around time travel in Star Trek. I once had this really cool dream about a virtual video game where I actually got to walk around on the bridge of the Enterprise. Don't you think that's cool, Jamie?

(I can't keep going on the track I'm on.
It ends right now and it always will.
If I jump I could make it.
If I jump I could try.
If I jump I could make it.
And finally die.)

What? Don't be so negative. I mean, we just met and all, but I think I love you. I never even listen to music, except on the radio in the car, and on television when it's used for setting, and sometimes when I do homework just to drown out the silence... But I could listen to you sing for a million epochs. That's a long time, I think, though I can't remember if I'm using "epochs" correctly. It's a big word, because I am pretty smart. You do like me, right?

(In the end I'll stay
And keep watching the sheep.
Knowing that as I move
They'll always be there.
And so will I
With ticket in hand.)

(The song fades away, the lights come back on, and everything is the same.)

Goodbye Jamie. When you're famous, I'll be glad to know I hallucinated your first music video in text. Until then, I'll be preparing myself for the excitement.