I was just running through some of the pages on my Web site, to see how they look on a monitor set at a different resolution than the 1024×768 at which I’m building the site. (Actually, I try to keep in mind that some people still have 800×600, especially laptops, and keep the pages small.) I came upon this page, with a poem that I wrote in 1994.

I’m trying to remember 1994. I used to walk on the bluffs at Jellybowl sometimes, with Tasha. I worked at AGIA, in medical claims. I was in Abigail’s group of poets then. I was going to church a lot.

So I’m looking at the year, 1994 and something is troubling me. I don’t know what … It has a 19 in it. I was born in 1961. And I think about the number we use now when we write the date: 2005. I tried to get everybody around me to understand that the millennium didn’t begin until 01.01.2001. But that’s not what’s bugging me. I didn’t believe the computers would all crash when the 19 changed to 20, but that’s not the problem.

Oh, I get it. I just don’t believe in it, this business of a 21st century with no 19. I believe the Earth is round, that we sent men to the moon, and I’ll even concede Evolution in some limited sense. But I’m not buying this 2000+ business. It’s simply too weird. I’m am a child of the 19s. Now somebody needs to figure out what the number really is, and give me my century back.

OK, my nephew was born in 2001, so he can be a child of the new millennium, but I’m going back where I belong. See ya.