The Keelhauler woke me up at 4:15 this morning to tell me I’d just received a text message from Al. The Keelhauler happened to be awake at the time—he doesn’t sleep well, owing to a work schedule incorporating a rotating series of middle-of-the-night watch shifts. As a result, he is frequently awake several times a night, and enjoys to share whatever’s on his mind with me, without bothering to see if I’m awake. He just starts talking out loud. It can be anything from “I think I’m going to take the hatch boards to work with me next hitch,” to “If I finish the 110, I can start rewiring the 12-volt panel with Tony tomorrow.” Generally, his conversations involve boats, but whatever the subject, I’m generally unprepared with a response, owing to the fact that I’m asleep. Oddly, I've gotten used to it, and don't really mind. (The thing I hate about sleeping is that like dying, you have to do it on your own. So, as much as I'd love to wake up refreshed, it feels kind of friendly to be reminded from time to time that he's there, just outside my sleep.)

Al works nights, so I wasn’t really surprised that he had sent me a text message at 4 AM, but it apparently startled The Keelhauler, who woke me up immediately (by calling loudly, and with no preface, from the next room) to tell me. I thanked him, and closed my eyes again. “Can you print me out a copy of your online diary?” he called, as if I was sitting in front of the computer. “Sure,” I hedged, trying to remember if I’d told him I had an online diary. I think I had told him, but it didn’t seem to be the kind of detail he’d recall, as it didn’t involve boats, boating, or boat repair.

In the morning, I looked at my phone and saw that The Keelhauler had not only noticed Al’s message, but opened it, as well. The message said, “I loved your online diary,” which also explained The Keelhauler’s sudden curiosity in the subject. He asked me about my diary on the way to work this morning, and what I wrote about. "So, do you get money for this diary?"

"No. It's a volunteer effort."

"So, how do people find out about your diary?"

"Well, it's mostly my friends who know about it. I suppose someone could find it through a search engine, and then read back through the archives if they liked it."

"And then you could become really, really famous and rich?"

"Well, I suppose I COULD, but it is highly unlikely."

The spectre of fame appealed to him, and he wanted to know more about the process. “Like, do you write down everything that happens to you all day long, or what?”

“It’s more like selected incidents,” I answered, “It’s hard to type it all in real time.”

“I have no doubt you could do it,” he said, in an obvious attempt to ensure a favorable mention in today’s entry. “What do you write about?”

“I write about my friends, and if you are a jerk or if you are nice,” I said, “like about how you yelled ‘Blah, blah, blah’ and I got mad, and about how we went to see Lyle Lovett and sat in the back row.”

He absorbed this, clearly seeing the potential for his emergence as an Internet celebrity.

“Did you read Al’s message?” I asked him casually.

“I thought it might be important.”

“It was 4:00 in the morning. Did you think he’d fallen down and wanted me to dial 911 for him?”

“Well,” he said, “What if he did? The newspapers would say, ‘A local man was burglarized during his walk home... at 4:00 a.m... from The Grill restaurant. He was set upon by a gang of teenage hoodlums. Luckily, he had the presence of mind to text-message an out-of-state friend…”

“All right, all right.”

(Burglarized.)

So, friends—if you’re in trouble, feel free to send me a text message. Near or far, The Keelhauler will wake me up to come to your rescue.

Star of the day. . .Batman