It has been my practice to, as best as I can, as much as I’m allowed, ignore birthdays. My birthdays. I love the attention, don’t get me wrong, but I have always been a bit nervous about attention, especially undeserved attention. I mean, what the hell, it’s just another day of the week, a point in the arbitrary cycle of time humans impose on nature, and I’m just passing through. What’s so special about that?
Birthdays are markers, to be used by people to order their universes. It matters little to me that I am now 56 years old (fifty-six! shit, how did that happen? …