Birthday Batches And A Shout Out To Orrence

Realizing today was August 16th, I started thinking about this block of time and how weirdly it's pops up again and again in my life. For some reason, I've known a lot of people...a LOT of people... with birthdays in the block of August 16th-17th-18th. I've had another block consistently show up in September 21-23, October 10-29, and again in December: 20-26. The first week of January, February 3rd (a lot), May 15-17, and June 1. What is it about these dates???

Oh, yeah. It's Madonna's birthday today. Big whoop. The Duchess of Deviant with the mouth of a truck driver, but in a spiritual kinda way. She's 47. Her next world tour will be called Hot Flash. Her next disco remix: Widow's Hump.

Also Kathie Lee and Frank Gifford. A husband and wife with the same birthday. Weird. What? "Frank. Fraaaaannnnk...whine...It's MY birthday. I get to blow out the candles. :::shove:::"

And my personal favorite: T.E. Lawrence. Lawrence of Arabia. Mr. Seven Pillars of Wisdom.

"Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that all was vanity, but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes and make it possible."

I was talking about Lawrence as I wrote this, and my friend said "What do you know about T.E. Lawrence?" I went over the obvious things: died from a motorcycle accident in England, wrote The Seven Pillars of Wisdom (we talked about that: I actually got to read a first edition of that once: not an easy read, great maps), went native, the way Omar Sharif kept saying "Orrence" in Lawrence of Ararbia, and then to be a brat, I added, "Oh. He looked good in a lot of billowing white fabric, not an easy look for a girl to carry off."

Speaking of deserts, one of the most fascinating books I've ever stumbled across taught you how to read sand patterns in the desert for navigational purposes. I think it was called A Study of Windborne Sand And Dust in Desert Areas. One of those books the Pentagon puts out. I was thoroughly intrigued that by studying a swatch of sand, you could learn from the wind and the sun and the ripples in the earth just where you might be and what the conditions were. I knew a man who almost died in the Sahara once. I have the compass he carried with him sitting in one of my bookcases to remind me of him, now departed from the earth, and every time I see it, I think about him...and the desert.

             

             Colonel T. E. Lawrence Working The White