"any aspirations either way"

Life I suppose I should say something. I turned thirty-six today, twice the age of an undergraduate and psychologically not much has changed. I'm more self-aware perhaps and world-aware, but basically I'm the same person. The burden of responsibility still yet to properly descend. Not that the eighteen year old version of me didn't exactly have any aspirations either way anyway. As the expected early midlife crisis descends, I've pretty much decided that so long as I'm breathing and still have my higher brain functions along with my questioning genes in fully working order, everything else is a luxury.

I watched The Big Chill tonight to celebrate which might not have been the best of ideas since between the hilarious script and remarkable performances, it's also about how the people who're most important to you and who you could be yourself with tend to move away. Or something. Either way, I said as much in a reply to an email to an old friend who'd only contacted to send her birthday wishes. I suspect the ensuing email exchange will be excellent. That'll teach me to also drink my one beer in the past six months. The youngster who was half my age didn't drink which accounts for my cretinous alcohol intolerance now.

But thanks for all of your birthday wishes via the usual modern interrelated socialist communication devices and apologies for inevitably not returning the favour in the future. The problem with having Halloween as your birthday is that it's fixed target; everyone remembers my birthday. I'm then at the disadvantage of having to remember everyone else's and though Facebook offers the ability to track such things, that doesn't include everybody. Perhaps that's what's missing. Perhaps if I made the effort to remember that one thing (or several dozen things), everything else would fall into place. But I doubt it. We can't all live in a feel good film about friends, with soundtrack nostalgia.