There used to be a soap opera on television when I was a teenager called The Edge of Night I used to watch it every day after school. I couldn't get into most soap operas which were an hour long and in which there seemed to be a lot of illness. But The Edge of Night was only half an hour long and there seemed to be a lot of crime. The whole reason why I got involved with it was because I came in in the middle of the trial of a very attractive man named Draper Scott - I guess for murder. What else would you be on trial for in a soap opera? Anyway, I was not so much interested in if Draper Scott did it or not - you could sort of tell that he didn't....not on account of that he was good looking, but on account of his wife was very sweet. I was more interested to find out what the hell was going to happen to a character named Draper Scott! And were they ever going to show his mother? Who in their right mind would name a kid "Draper"?

After The Edge of Night was over, I would flip over to Star Trek during which I would get up during the commercial breaks and progressivly set the table for dinner - thereby excusing myself from the laziness of watching more than 1/2 hour of television at one time, and when Star Trek was over I'd start to cook the meal ( My mom worked on the 3-11 shift at the hospital)

Anyway, the other interesting thing about The Edge of Night was that it didn't look as "slick" in the way it was filmed as the other soap operas. It looked a little more like another one of my guilty t.v. pleasures - Dr. Who...though it wasn't quite that grainey. On the other soap operas there seemed to be a sort of wierd saccherine morality. There was certainly pleanty of suffering, but nothing really bad ever happened to the really good people ( while the iffy people never exactly got their just desserts either) But on The Edge of Night you got the feeling that anything could happen to anybody at any time. And people weren't so much evil as they were weak. For instance, poor Draper ( to nobody's surprise) was found guilty and shipped off to prison, attached to a man in a grey flannel suit on the way upstate on a train by means of a pair of handcuffs. Naturally there was a train wreck and a fire, and the guy uncuffed Draper, but he got conked on the head and had amnesia, and was taken in and cared for by this dark haired Other Woman, who was just lonely and young. His poor blonde wife back in the city! And then, shortly before the programme went off the air, at least in my area, Raven, who was pretty evil and a woman got arrested by these guys who weren't really cops and put in jail which wasn't really jail. I mean it was creepy. You couldn't help but feel a little sorry for Raven, even though she had done something terrible - hell, maybe she was responsible for Draper Scott's misfortune's in the first place.

Anyway, my life lately has been reminding of The Edge of Night. Everything has taken on a dark, unsettled feeling. Even as I go about my work, as cheerfully as possible, I have got that feeling that anything could happen to me at any time. It wouldn't be because I had done something wrong. It would just be a twist in the plot. Little D. is away at camp at Island Girl's and it's too quiet over there. Instead of telling me a mildly risque joke to make me feel better when he heard about my back Rev. T.D. asked if he could pray with me. My clients are all looking at me in wide eyed concern. The Hub is looking at me like I am an old car which is about to break down at any minute. Even the dog is going through fits of anxiously sniffing me.

I feel like all the harshness and wierdness of life is ready to fall on me at a moments notice. We got the tax bill paid, I can make the car payment, it's not too hot so we don't have to run the air conditioners....I should be feeling good about things. But I'm not. I've got this feeling like being unfairly sentenced for a crime I didn't commit ( i.e. having the problem with my back and legs through just bad luck and congenital misfortune) is going to be nothing compared to the train wreck and the fire ahead.

Well, we'll see I guess.

Tune in again tomorrow!