... Well, who'd a thunk it. My birthday: a landmark along the road I'm on that makes me stop for just a moment and pause. The most wonderful is that I'm here at all -- a long term survivor. Numbers-wise it's important enough to take seriously, but I have no intention of acting my age, which is what my dad always admonishes. To do that, to act my age, dress my age, would age me faster than a diet of bacon, Krispy Kremes and cigarettes. So many of my friends are either half my age, or they've already gone beyond; it's lonely here when I look around to see my peers, old friends who remember when we were young, vital and wild and realize they are all gone.

I have come to see there are indeed changes in me I cannot change and must accept, as much as I may go into this phase of my life kicking and fighting. So much of what I dreamed of would be my life is clearly never going to happen. So much I never dreamt could happen to me, has.

Here it is Indian summer and I've (damn) closed up the island house, leaving lots undone. I should be there today, it's so perfect. Spring will find either some of my precious herbs alive and well, or I will just have to buy more. I probably will not plant cherry tomatoes in pots again next summer, although the ones I did harvest were super in every way. Just so many all at once and no one to eat them all with :(
Ah I'll do them again too.

Saturday afternoon now, and 73 New York degrees. wow -- killer. I will surely bring Blondie to the park on the river down the block and let her play with the other dogs there. It's wonderful to be so close to the river; the views sounds and smells of the harbor are wonderful reminders of my beloved water. It's already time for me to go and get my face re-injected with collagen again. The sunken cheeks have returned. Rambling onward, Art wants to buy an eleven thousand dollar painting, and called to get me to talk him out of it. Ought I have done so? I offered him a few of my paintings as gifts. He isn't really into my personal taste in paintings, ah well. Well it turns out he has the thing on his wall now, on a 48 hour approval. He loves it, says it looks great on his wall. For eleven G's it should. So he should have it. He can afford it, and even if he can't, it's a lesson he needs to learn. I can't wait to see it. I imagine he will be having a cocktail party to show it off to his friends, all of whom, like him, don't drink.

Birthday milestone again and here I am wondering why I haven't done more with my life. I feel as though I've let me down. Well, it's kind of complicated, but with all I have seen and all the wonderful people who have been lost to this plague that I have survived, and have not done something great as a way of justifying that survival, I mean all I have done is to remain ordinary. I owe more to whatever power has granted me this time. It began last week when I was trying to finish a eulogy for my friend Dennis, who passed in September of 1996. I wanted to post it on my website as a memorial, so I was editing what I wrote back in '96. I just couldn't find enough words to describe how noble and beautiful he was. When I think of how wonderful those souls were -- are, I feel unworthy of their love, which they gave to me so freely. Whatever changes have occurred, or which I've made, one change is I've let myself get away with less longer ago than recently.

Enough. I won't plague you with my self inflicted hair shirt. Maybe this is the right time for me to do some serious thinking about which way to steer my ship, I hope it's not too late already. After all is said and done it's not how many years one packs into a life time, it's the quality of those years, and the experiences one has with others that really matters.

Love still remains the elusive mystery. It occasionally sticks its head in, teasing, and then withdraws. Even in my loving affairs I've grown more beautiful, wiser and stronger even in the anguish of having it unrequited. Still, love is really the essential energy in the universe which no Einstein could ever figure out a formula for, and without which no equation would ever be complete.