The year is almost over. For those lucky souls who live in the moment, or who look ahead with hope and excitement, this time of year can be joyous. I’m the sort who glances back at the about-to-end year, who thinks of the good things the year brought and the things it took away. For me, New Year’s Day is always a pensive time, but in my last post of 2006, I’d like to keep things light, or should I say pink, and eulogize a frivolous thing: a candle.

In a cursory, fifth-grade art class, my teacher asked me, out of the blue, that dull question: “Kevin, what’s your favorite color?” Always wanting to be precise, I felt time quickly pass as my mind hunted for the right answer. Was it tangerine orange? Grass green? Or the blue-purple of my nicest wool sweater? “What’s that blue called?” I thought, “Gentian?” Finally, my eyes rested on my friend Meredith’s knit cap. It was pink and I liked pink, and pink was pink, so I said, “Pink”. No one laughed, not even the boys; but the teacher said: “Pink is for girls”…

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