Thankful

I had a wonderful birthday yesterday.  Thanks to each of you for stopping by the blog, leaving a comment or a thought or sending me an email.  I got some great recipes, poetry, some pictures, all the Jack Handey deep thoughts I'll need for the year, and a soundfile or two as well as what was posted here in the comments.  I got text messages and phone calls and a mysterious and beautiful handmade unsigned birthday card in the mail (I think I know who you are, anonymous sender, and am plotting a scheme to reciprocate with unexpected sweetness).  Besides my blogfriends, I got phone calls from friends from all different life stages.  Perhaps my favorite was a call from my best friend from 2nd grade, now a weightlifting toughie who owns a self-storage business in rural Maine and who brought me up to date on her tattoos.  "Last month I had two guys inking me at the same time," she said, matter of factly.  "Never done that before.  I think 2005 is going to be a good year for the tattoos."  I got a birthday haircut and an e-card featuring cheerleaders and groucho glasses and a tiny sleek magnetic travel size chess set.  All in all, a good day. 32 is off to a great start.  And the days are already getting longer. 

Now I'm headed out of town to spend the better part of today with my dear friend and college sailing partner.  She's on Christmas break from law school, where she hangs out with none other than Energy Spatula.  Small world....

Comments

[Sui Generis]

I missed the birthday somehow. Happy belated, anyway.

The atlantic was born today and i'll tell you how...
The clouds above opened up and let it out.

I was standing on the surface of a perforated sphere
When the water filled every hole.
And thousands upon thousands made an ocean,
Making islands where no island should go.
Oh no.

Those people were overjoyed; they took to their boats.
I thought it less like a lake and more like a moat.
The rhythm of my footsteps crossing flood lands to your door have been silenced forever more.
The distance is quite simply much too far for me to row
It seems farther than ever before...

--lyrics from Transatlanticism, by Death Cab for Cutie