I So Much Want Him to Care What I Think

In case you missed it on "60 Minutes," here's what CBS correspondent Andy Rooney thinks about older women:

"As I grow in age, I value women over 50 most of all. For example, a woman over 50 will never wake you in the middle of the night and ask, 'What are you thinking?' She doesn't care what you think."

My husband wants to know why I'm not one of these women. I still want to know what he thinks - especially in the middle of the night. When I am usually not asleep. And he is, or would like to be, if I weren't keeping him awake asking important questions.

The darker and quieter it gets, the more active my mind becomes. Sometimes I have to really reach into the night's silence.

"Will you explain light years to me?" I asked George the other night, knowing it's hard for him to resis science-speak.

"You want me to explain that at 3 a.m.?"

"Why not?"

"What exactly do you need to know?"

"Why do they call them light years? Is that opposed to heavy years?"

"No, it's a measurement of distance."

"The why not miles?"

"Because...are you asking this just so I'll keep talking to you?"

"No, I've always wondered."

"And you have to know right now?"

"I'm not going to live forever."

I don't have the space to give you his full explanation, other than to tell you that it finally did put me to sleep.

But, in case you were wondering, a light year is 5 quadrillion, 878 trillion, 499 billion, 810 thousand miles. You never know when you will need a statistic like that so keep it handy. It's not likely I'll be able to rattle it off again.

Stay tuned. I have a lot of sleepless nights. Who knows what I might learn next.