Day 123: Blood Moon

I'm going to be honest. I didn't even know there was a super uber bloody red moon of awesome proportions until we went over to my parents' house for pizza last night. Because let's face it, my life revolves around writing and Disney and pizza, and anything out of those three categories usually goes unnoticed. So pizza led me to the blood moon, is what I'm saying.

"The moon will look the best at 9:47," Mom said, and I told her that was nice.

"No, like bright red, duh," Alex said.

So we headed outside, away from the television playing  Toy Story 3 (see?), and stood in the driveway, looking up at the moon being slowly gobbled by some sort of Shadow God.

That's my scientific observation.

My life also revolves around comfort, so I suggested we leave the driveway and go up to the lake, where I could recline in my Prius front seat, away from mosquitoes and aching feet.

The lake was packed. Who knew that everyone was into watching the moon? We got the last two spots in the parking lot, and everyone else had to park on the grass, which I'm pretty sure wasn't legal.

We sat there for an hour watching the moon.

Alex and I talked about what the moon actually was, how big the moon was, how close the moon was, what was causing it to turn red (although it didn't look red from where I was sitting), and how long it would be before the Earth was swallowed up by a supernova.

"You know it wasn't long ago we were all Neanderthals?" Alex told me, and he added, "By the time all of this explodes, humans won't look anything like us. If someone from the distant future came to visit us now, then we wouldn't recognize them as one of us."

"Do you think Roswell could be time travelers then?"

"Maybe."

A pause.

"It's sad all of this will be gone at some point."

"We'll get shoved out to the furthest reaches of the 'verse."

"Do you think we'll colonize by that point?"

"We'll have to. Have you ever seen a supernova? It's beautiful."

"No, they're scary. They kill things."

And of course there's that obligatory "I feel so small" sentiment that everyone shares when thinking about watching "all of the sunsets and sunrises at the same time" glide across the little moon, and the shadows show you that the moon isn't even that far away.

"The moon glows red," Alex said, "because it's so close, it's still brighter than the night sky ... look! There's a satellite."

"I always thought those were planes."

"Too high up for planes."

"And they're watching us, right now?"

Later on, I checked into Facebook, only to find all of my friends were watching the same moon, and a good 800,000 strangers had also checked in. "That's just on Facebook!" I told Alex. Then pictures came in from all around the world (although, yes, time differences, but stay with me).

But the thing I'll remember most, is holding Alex's hand.

"You know when I was a kid," I told him, "about every few months, I'd look up at the moon and take comfort in the idea that my moon was the same moon that you looked at. Like I would think about how the person I would be with ... they already existed, and they were out there in the world somewhere, already living out their life, and I just hadn't met them yet."

Alex nodded, because he already knew all this. And I already knew he'd done the same thing.

"And now," I said, "now we're together and we're watching the moon like this."

He nodded again.

That's what I'll remember.