However, today is also Towel Day, a day two weeks after the death date of Douglas Adams, science fiction comedy writer without peer. He died too young, at just 49 years old, of a heart attack, when I was in college.
I celebrated that first towel day, even though I was moving, by carrying around a towel all day, as is tradition, and have done so ever since. Today I'll wear my t-shirt that explains how important towels are to interstellar hitchhikers (very).
Douglas Adams' books are somehow really important to me, and not just in helping identify friends with a similar sense of humor. Sometimes life just throws you into crazy circumstances, just like Arthur who left earth wearing just his pajamas one day when Vogons bulldozed his home planet to make way for a hyperspace highway. Arthur generally complains about the quality of the tea wherever he goes, and just wants to get his life back, but eventually he learns to relax and let life happen to him.
It's a good metaphor for parenting, too. Nothing can prepare you for what it's like to be a parent, but leaving behind you everything that's familiar and traveling with crazy people through totally unfamiliar territory? Pretty close.
So if you're looking for a side-splitting laugh of a book, set in space, I'd highly recommend some Hitchhiker's Guide. But that's because I'm a Hoopy Frood who knows where her towel is.
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