lately, and sometimes, it is difficult to sleep. the house is little and big, and quiet and sometimes creepy. in an email to my mother i say something like “lately i am having a tough time falling asleep kind of”. my mother reminds me about how i was very little and would ask for the furnace to be turned on when i went to bed, more for the hum than the heat. it is true, my sleeping is in need of aural ambiance.

i don’t remember asking to have it energized nightly, but i do rank my parents’ furnace among one of the most pleasing sounding mechanisms ever assembled by humanity, or at least a distinct furnace manufacturer from the 1970′s, perhaps now defunct. my parents’ furnace produces a brilliant white noise, a high quality baritone whir. it is beautiful.

perhaps on my next visit to my hometown, i will conceal a recording device on my person, and i will infiltrate my parents’ house as i have done so many times before, and i will tamper with the thermostat and i will perform field recordings of the furnace in action, and i will loop the resulting tape using software, and i will manufacture a compact disc with 73 minutes and 85 seconds of furnace noise, and the sound will emanate from a small stereo beside my bed for ever and ever. perhaps there is not even a need to be so sneaky in the capturing of the furnace sound.

i will be among the ancestors of a people who google the sound of my childhood furnace for syncing to their 22nd century ipod, if people will still sleep anymore by then.

Despite the common conception, Sean Penn actually has an apparent magnitude of only 4.2, although it is true that, much like our Sun, Sean Penn will slowly evolve into a Red Giant (a process which will likely vaporize the Earth), and ultimately Sean Penn will cool and fade as a White Dwarf star over many billions of years.

Nowadays i am always in a situation where i could have had tea ten minutes ago. It’s just that the kettle doesn’t whistle anymore.

It’s almost like it wants to be a metaphor for something.