The aftermath

My birthday was lovely. Perhaps it was a bit thick outside, but when one doesn't leave the air-conditioned house until early evening, this doesn't really present much of a problem. Troy took the boys to his dad's house for the day, allowing me to sleep in, laze about and accept lady callers bearing gifts. Dinner was at an Italian restaurant where we were served by the reincarnation of Selma from "Night Court". The charming ambience and wonderful food were marred only by the fleeting worry that she was one ill-placed step away from a broken hip. We followed dinner with dessert at my parents' house. My children entertained us with some drawings, but became giddy and obnoxious from being over-tired. This resulted in an unfortunate portrait of my dad that looked distinctly like Walter Mathhau. It was a weird evening.

I am so very grateful for every call, gift, card, message, hug and long, deep, wet kiss. It's really easy to take each birthday for granted, but as I get older and see loss all around me on a regular basis, I'm finally catching on. It's ok for me to celebrate, really celebrate, my birthday. I'm not going to have that many of them, and this is a fairly magnificent little life I have here.

Happy birthday to me

This is the first posting on my first blog. It's really more for me than anyone else but hey, you can read it if you're into masochism. I find that not only does Facebook not give me enough room to say all the things I really want to say, but I worry about offending my more puritanical friends. How could such a foul-mouthed liberal as myself HAVE puritanical friends you ask? Variety is the spice of life; live and let live; to each their own and a bunch of other crappy cliches that basically mean I get along with and enjoy lots of different people. When you feel like you have at least 5 personalities, it's important to have a group of friends for each of them, else they get lonely, see? Anyway, I should be working on the book I've had in my noggin for years, but this seems like an excellent way to waste time.

I'm two hours into my 42nd birthday and I have to say that 42 is so much less traumatic than 41. 40 really didn't bother me much, but for some reason 41 made me feel ancient. Hugh Hefner ancient. Larry King ancient. Andy Rooney ancient. (Insert you own old, crusty lecher here.) I could really torture myself and admit that it's entirely possible - especially given my medical history - that my life is half over. But the last few years I've been trying to become more enlightened and positive. (I don't mind telling you, that really fights against my upbringing of cynicism and pessimism.) I'm going to treat this as a day to move forward, take on new adventures, be more open and embrace life. If I'm being honest, I really want other, less high-minded things this year, too: to lose the 70 pounds I've gained in the past three years, for my house to be clean for more than 3 fucking minutes and more sex. I'd also take a new purse.