Jurvis claims that my images are too tiny. “I want to click on them, and see a bigger version!” he says. For two years, I passionately resisted this potential improvement for no reason whatsoever.

Kelly and Adam at Mystic Lake

Until today. Click the image for a larger version. Woo woo.

Some fish like the dark.

I’d been to the Boston Aquarium multiple times and had never seen that sign. It hovered over a set of thick black velvet curtains near the main doors, like an entrance to some haunted magicians’ supply store. Nearby, the chaos of aquatic gifts and Dippin Dots churned together with other important missions — men and women running around in PHOTOGRAPHY STAFF blazers, ticket-givers and ticket-rippers. Children screamed. Strollers collapsed and folded. A man in a wetsuit and headpiece microphone entered neon water and announced the penguins’ names.

“No, no,” he explained with forced patience, his tired voice skipping across imitation boulders and settling into a tank of crustaceans at our left. “That one’s Denzel. What did I say about the tags?”

“Some fish like the dark,” I read to my mother. “Deep sea fish. No flash photography. Interested?”

Hey, remember when I offered this counter contest, to this legit contest? Turns out, I’m a deadlines person. This hippie “due when it’s finished” crap wound up doing me no favors.

This morning I woke up to discover that all my WordPress plugins had been deactivated. “That’s odd!” I thought. “Oh well, let’s not think about it.” I reactivated them and went along my merry way.

But, um, now, I notice that my pages are missing. You know. Like my “about” page. And my “archives” page, formerly linked at the top of this here index page. They’re not to be found at all, so I can’t just reactivate them. I may have to rebuild them from scratch.

And this is perfect timing, because in one hour I leave for Costa Rica, to be gone and internetless for one week. So if I’ve been haxx0red and you stumble in here one day to find something disagreeable to your workplace, color me sunburned. Backing this up now, and here’s hoping for next Wednesday.

I rarely have problems sleeping any more, but when I do, my first tack is to stare dejectedly at the ceiling for a while. After I’ve examined the light fixture for the appropriate amount of time, I may flop from one side to the other like some apathetic, dying fish. Finally I’ll roll over and poke Jurvis repeatedly in the arm.

“Jurvis Jurvis Jurvis Jurvis,” I whisper, as if perhaps allowing him to remain in deep, wonderful slumber. “Tell me a story?”

There are actually two problems with this technique: one, if I actually fall asleep while he’s telling me a story, it means that I’m an asshole. Two, if neglect to fall asleep while he’s telling me a story, it means that we’re committing to stay awake for some time. One memory inspires another, so that one minute he’s telling me about eating sugar cane in St. Martinville with his dad and the next I’m recalling the Nut Goodie bars my sister and I would eat in the backseat of the Mazda after our family chopped down the Christmas tree and the next he’s recalling the stonewashed jeans of the 8th grade girl who sat next to him the first day he rode the school bus.

“Had enough stories?” he asked me last night as I abruptly pushed myself out of bed and headed to the door.

“Nope. Bathroom break.”

Jurvis’ memories go far back. Louisiana, for example. His family left Louisiana when he was four. This guy actually remembers wearing diapers. It blows my mind. Meanwhile — and this is beginning to bother me, what with all this recollectin’ going on around here — I have absolutely no memory of my parents being together. They divorced when I was about six.

It isn’t that I haven’t tried to remember these things.

“Oh, oh!” I nearly said, one oppressive summer evening, our legs dangling miserably off the mattress. “I remember my dad building the tree house!”

No, wait, I realized. That’s not a memory, that’s a home video you’ve seen. Must be, because you’re looking at yourself, and that’s not how memories work.