"You can't see the moon without the sun." -Howard Hughes, Jr.

He and I were just on the phone, comparing half-moon sightings on our respective trips home: mine was perched atop a tall, Christmas-lit spruce in San Marino. His rested on an Abbot Kinney building in Venice.

The first time we discussed the moon was when we first met, a year and 4 months ago. I'd told him over the phone that the view of the moon from my house on the hill was spectacular...and, after we'd taken a tour of Downtown LA, he asked if he could come up to see it.

The next time was a couple of months ago, during the lunar eclipse, his first. He called to ask me if I was watching it; we stayed on the phone and described it to each other: the moon was on fire, a burnt orange glow through the clouds.

I told him tonight that, if I had to make a choice, I'd choose the moon. And he pointed out the irony.

So...I have no choice but to choose it all.