Over the Moon.

I was born of a music-loving family and my parents both came from homes that had a piano as their living room centerpiece. So ours did, too.

When I was really young, I remember my dad sitting down on the bench nearly every night and playing some really raucous boogie woogie. (I mentioned this to him awhile back and he doesn't remember it at all. Which makes me question it. Except I can see him now as if it were yesterday: pounding the keys, lifting out of his seat, spanning from low to high, his hands spastically jumping off the keys. If this isn't a real memory, then what the hell?)

My sister took it up and played beautifully for many years, and even played marimba in our high school's jazz band as a graduation of her skills. I played for a while, too, but lacked the interest or discipline, especially when our living room's picture window invited my attention to the outside world—one that didn't ask me to follow the measures, staffs, and bar lines. Or the dreaded metronome.

While I didn't appreciate the art as an occupation for myself, I was greatly influenced by it in an ancillary way—and, today, I  occasionally surprise friends and acquaintances with my spot-on knowledge of the classics.

Tonight, while watching Jeopardy! (a particularly nerdy thing to do, especially on a Friday night), the entire neighborhood probably heard me shouting: Clair de Lune! Clair de Lune!! Seriously, it's Clair de Lune!!!!! at the Final Jeopardy answerers. And I was right.