A photo of an astrological clock (this one at Beautiful Soup will more than do) attracts you, and at a glimpse the word "crepusculum," partially hidden, catches in your eye as it always does. The word sits before the unnamed darkness, before the word "aurora," and if you didn't already know what it means, you might infer its meaning from the context clues on the clock. You know, of course, what the Latinate "crepuscular" means, although you have never understood why its effect on you differs so much from the liquid, transalpine "twilight," and you remember that you once knew--long ago, different life, different latitude, so a different light--that "crepuscular" refers more specifically than "twilight" does to evening twilight, because, of course, those old Romans had "diluculum" to indicate the morning twilight, clever bastards.

Although you might note hastily that the sibilant "crepuscular" whispers what it signifies, you turn back instead to wondering why "crepuscular" carries a more concrete, tactile sense of the light to you than the word "twilight" does, back to wondering just how the word makes you feel that the light is more particle than wave, makes you feel that the crepuscular light is a gauzy mask stretched across your face, and you try by clicking in this place and that, and by turning pages, to disassemble the word to learn the meaning of the whole.

And you fail.

You fail, yes, but along the way you learn that crepuscular rays, although they seem to diverge, are parallel and that the illusion of vergence (di- or con-, depends on direction, doesn't it) is caused by perspective, the same effect that causes railroad tracks to appear to converge in the distance, and somewhere along that path (though you’ll never remember where) you are surprised to learn that the ring-necked pheasant (Phasianus colchicus), a bird that is abundant here on the Kansas plains and one you thought a native, an upland game bird that is widely hunted and consumed here (tastes like, um, turkey, but sweeter, moister, like, well, chicken) was introduced here in the plains in the 19th century from China, and you’re already off wondering about the story behind the introduction of the pheasant--China, central plains, 19th century, railroad, a laborer, perhaps-—before you remind yourself to look more closely at that really interesting word "upland."

And you haven't given gambrel roofs so much as a mention, have you, haven't mentioned that you'd been down that track, too.

Well, not down it so much as bumping alongside it.

Another day. You're on (off?) to other things already.

Toot-toot!