Ghost in the Machine?

So I was dreaming, as you do in the middle of the night, and in my dream there was some music playing. Very clearly, not like music usually does when you're dreaming. It all made sense at the time, but then the song faded out and another song started, also very clearly. Clearly enough that I grew suspicious in my unconscious state and woke up. To hear music. This music was not in my head at all, but in my ears.

In the dark, I got up to investigate. It was five past midnight. The music was coming from Isaac's room. Now, if he had been singing in his sleep, I wouldn't have been surprised. He does stuff like that. But no, the music was coming from the Ipod.

We have an Ipod in his room, hooked up to a set of computer speakers. We used to put it on shuffle and it would put him to sleep, but we haven't used it for a few weeks now. It was playing. The Ipod had started at the first song in its library and was working its way through. Now it's nice to listen to a bit of Chris Isaak now and then, but hearing his dulcet tones crooning through the house in the middle of the night from a possibly haunted Ipod lent his heartfelt ballads a slightly sinister edge.

I turned the Ipod off. Then went back to bed. It didn't do it again.

The question now is this: Is there a ghost in the house, or in the Ipod? And how do you exorcise an Apple?

Why Canaries are Yellow

Midnight last night we were awoken by the crying of a rather unhappy baby. I'd been asleep for about an hour and trying to find the necessary awakeness to deal with the situation was a challenge. As C and I stumbled through the process of settling Isaac, giving him some Pamol for his teeth and putting a bottle into him, I realised that I was somewhere between being awake, and being dreaming but not asleep. Every time I closed my eyes I was back in that odd experiential place where the dream was the most real thing in my perception.

And that was when it all became clear: Canaries and corn are the same colour because they're made of each other, tomatoes grow best on red bricks, and just about everything in the world is actually built of lego. Amazing how the mysteries of the world become clear in the middle of the night when you're dreaming but not asleep.