I don't want to tell you. Okay, I'll tell you.

Why am I awake, typing this post at 5:05 a.m.? I can't tell you. No, really, I can't. Because it's a little bit pathetic.

It's partly because Kayte sent me an email that made me wince, titled as it was in all-caps: IT'S BEEN TEN DAYS. She is a stern taskmaster, and has no truck with paltry excuses like "The dog ate my keyboard."

But that isn't totally the reason why I'm awake. It's so silly. So promise not to roll your eyes.

I'm awake because this is the second Sunday of Advent and the new choir at our church has its debut this morning. We have practiced . We're due to practice more this morning before Mass. And Noelle, the choir director...well, talk about your stern taskmasters. She makes Kayte look like Glinda the Good Witch, with the pink dress and the wand and everything. Noelle has us singing page after page of Gregorian chant and a number of other ambitious songs and to be honest, I'm excited. I'm looking forward to it.

However, freezing rain is forecasted. It hasn't started yet, but I jerked awake about an hour ago thinking "Rain? Here yet? Roads bad? No SINGING? None?" And I went to the window to check out the sitch. It was not raining, but I just had one of those feelings, located precisely in all the bones I broke in that car accident back when I was 21, which is to say "almost all of them."

I had that achey, rain's a-comin' feeling. So I came down to the computer, and sure enough, it is raining west of us.

This feeling is familiar from childhood. It's the worry that Santa might not get through because of a snow storm. I know it's silly, to be up and awake with my anxious face scanning the weather radar for central Indiana. But that's just how I roll.

There is some rather special pleading being sent upwards to the place where, as I've heard, Gregorian chant is very much appreciated.