Friday 5: A-M-Z

From here.

1. What’s better in its middle than in its edges, beginnings, or ends?
   Pizza and pie for sure. My first meal of 2021 was a slice of apple caramel pie, and I don’t often do this, but I kind of ate the whole slice except the edge crust. Threw that away. The filling-crust ratio on the edge of a pie is just not satisfactory. I’ll add an airplane ride to this list too.
2. Why is a sunrise better than a sunset?
   All the usual answers: hope, potential, new beginnings. I love that my birthday is in early January, too, for the same reasons. Where I live, you can see the sun rise from the water and then set on the water in the same day, and while the colors are often much nicer for the sunset, the shoreline in the east and north of Oahu is a lot nicer for sitting on the beach.
3. What’s better in retrospect than when you experienced it?
   I remember romantic relationships and near-misses much more fondly than they probably warrant, even near the ends. The long relationship with R is the exception. Also almost every decent hike I’ve ever been on. Misery while you’re doing it, but amazing when you look back on it.
4. What songs have wonderful endings?
   I’m disappointed that nobody has said “A Day in the Life” by the Beatles, which I thought would be the number one response. I’m mentioning it here because it should be, but it’s not even my favorite ending of a Beatles song. That goes to the wistful “yeah-yeah-yeah, yeah” at the end of “The Long and Winding Road.” I’ll also nominate Bruce Cockburn’s “If I Had a Rocket Launcher,” Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run,” and Led Zep’s “Stairway to Heaven.”
5. What was the first thing you unwrapped in 2021?
   Taco Bell and a bottle of cava, my January 1 breakfast.