personal

Birthday

So I turned thirty-four today, which I think I wish I found more unbelievable than I actually do.

When I turned thirty, it just happened to be while I was at a conference for my job, and some co-workers asked me if I felt any different. “Well,” I remember saying, “I don’t feel twenty anymore.” And that’s pretty much how it goes: I don’t feel impossibly older than I did twenty-four hours, or even a year, ago, and god knows I don’t feel particularly grown up. But I also don’t feel particularly young. Maybe it’s the bad back, the recently banged-up knee, or maybe it’s just the natural way of these things. I feel like I’m in my thirties.

When I was in Boston earlier this month, I noted that, as I stood surrounded by crowds of twenty-somethings in Harvard Square, I had no desire to be among them. I felt no great nostalgia for my college days, I said, just the onset of a crotchety annoyance. That’s not entirely accurate. I’m occasionally nostalgic for my college days, just as I’m nostalgic sometimes for my childhood, teen years, or my early twenties. But that’s a far cry from wanting to hang out with these college students, or even wanting to relive those nostalgic years. Back and knee notwithstanding, I don’t really want to be in my twenties anymore. And lord knows, I’d be in no rush to relive adolescence.

I think that’s a healthy attitude, right? I mean, my life’s not perfect and not yet everything I wished it would be, but I’d rather be moving forward than looking backward.

Anyway, it was a really nice birthday, just a quiet Saturday at the old homestead. The weather was beautiful, although too cold to really do much of anything outside, but I spent the day happily watching some television and reading some Kaleidotrope slush. (Discovering that rarest of rare things: a story I want to accept.) Then this evening, I had a nice dinner out with my parents and some very lovely presents afterward — including the first two volumes of Absolute Sandman and a new leather jacket. (I managed to wear my previous one into the ground; I’ll have to be gentler with this one.) My sister called to wish me a happy birthday, and I’ll see her next week when she and her husband visit, and overall I had a really nice day.

Hopefully our dog, who as it happens shares my birthday, can say the same thing. Although I think he’d argue he got much less cake.

Sunny, chilly, day-offy Friday

I took the day off from work today and managed not to do a whole lot with it, beyond a little reading (Kaleidotrope slush, Steve Martin’s biography), a little television watching (this week’s touching, if not hilarious, Community), and a little faxing (some confirmation forms for my residency at the Banff Centre in September).

That last one took a little longer than anticipated, as I first thought to mail them, then ran into confusion and resistance at the post office — I FedEx stuff internationally regularly from the office; I’ve never needed a commercial invoice unless there’s something of value and weight enclosed, and certainly never for two sheets of paper. But whatever — and then went to the local Kinko’s to fax it instead. I don’t think it would be the end of the world if I faxed it from work on Monday, or even it arrived near the end of next week in the mail, but they did say “within two weeks.” So anyway.

Of course, the fax number just rang and rang, and when I tried calling the Registrar’s Office directly, I just got a recording. The two-hour time difference might have been working against me, as I was likely calling on their lunch hour. But I finally got through, and the woman at the other end confirmed the fax number, then told me she’d switch it off then on, and I should try again. And that seemed to work. I sent an e-mail following up, and now everything should be confirmed and paid for.

I think now with this, and buying my plane tickets earlier in the week, there’s no denying that I’m actually doing this quite possibly crazy thing. I still have to book my hotel stay in Calgary, but I am looking forward to it — to the week of writing, to the inspiring scenery of Banff itself, and to the chance to meet Heather in person. She’s the one who recommended the residency in the first place, and honestly no slouch as a writer herself.

And she sent me this for my birthday! The first of the books won’t arrive until early summer, unfortunately, but they look like an interesting enough mix that it will be worth the wait. Seriously very cool and thoughtful, and a nice way to ease into the fact that tomorrow — in just a few short minutes from now, actually — I will be thirty-four years old.

As little as I did with it, the day off helped with that, too.

Slushy, then sunny, Thursday

I could swear it was still snowing a little this morning, and slushy in the streets on the way to the train station. And the station platform itself was, of course, neither shoveled nor salted. (For all their incessant reminders to “mind the gap,” the Long Island Railroad doesn’t seem to care if you slip and crack your head open before the gap is even in your sight.) But then something happened during the day. I don’t know what they call it in your parts, but around here, I’m pretty sure we call it the sun.

So the snow — what little there was — all but melted, and the weather warmed up considerably. March has that whole “in like a lion, out like a lamb” business going on, but you don’t usually expect to see it over the course of a single day. I woke up this morning to winter, and came back home this evening in spring.

Which is nice, and I hope it continues. I’m taking off tomorrow, not for any particular reason, but just because I thought it might be nice take a long weekend around my birthday. I have a couple of things planned, but none of them much more stressful than sleeping late and maybe doing some reading. You know, real wild and crazy stuff.

Rainy, snowy Wednesday

We didn’t get a lot of snow, neither this morning nor this evening, although as of right now there is a light dusting on the ground and a lot of slush on the driveway. We had thunder and lightning earlier, and little pellets of sleet that covered my car. You know, nice spring weather.

Anyway, not a particularly exciting day. I went over to the new building this morning and got my photo ID car printed. We’ll need them to get in and out of the building, which seems easy enough, but will take some getting used to. We don’t have IDs at our current office, nor really much of any security beyond a pass-coded door, in our current office. Although we do have the Gemological Institute on the second floor, and they have security badges and private guards. And, of course, we also have the ever-present — including all this week — fire alarms. Yesterday, they said it was because they were “doing welding in the boiler room.” but isn’t that exactly what somebody planning a jewel heist at the GIA downstairs would say?

(Did I mention that one of the more exciting things I did while in Boston recently was re-watch Ocean’s 11 on cable?)

Not so rainy Tuesday

Today was pretty much exactly like yesterday, except for the cold and the rain. Although, rumor has it, we can expect more of that — and possibly even snow — tomorrow and the rest of the week.

I did forget my train ticket this morning, one of the main drawbacks of using it as a bookmark rather than keeping it someplace like in my wallet. I’ve been reading Kathleen Ann Goonan’s Mississippi Blues and, I have to admit, not really enjoying it. I remember Queen City Jazz, to which this is a direct sequel, but maybe not too well. And what I am remembering suggests, the problems I’m having now, were some of the same problems I had with the first book, just amplified or underlined by that series of slight disconnect.

Anyway, I decided to give the book a break, if not give up on it altogether, and I left it at home. I didn’t realize until I was on the train, though, that I’d also left my monthly ticket with it. So I bought another on the train, and then a return peak ticket when I got to Penn Station.

Which is about the extent of excitement for my day.