Thirty-Six

Yup. It's my birthday.

I woke to it on the 33rd floor, in a room three-plus hours from home, overlooking lower Manhattan and the Hudson River. From my bleary-eyed bed, I watched the orange-pink sunrise reflected in the otherwise periwinkle windows of New Jersey, and though I was alone, or perhaps because I was alone, I was happy.

I'm in my father's apartment while he's out of town with his significant other. (There is no good word for "girlfriend", is there, when the "boyfriend" is eighty?) I've got the place to myself until Tuesday, and plan to milk it for all it's worth: taking myself out shopping for birthday presents today, dinner with friends tonight and tomorrow night, galleries, museums, cafes, dancing Saturday night, brunch with J~ and B~ on Sunday, who are driving in for the day, and to accompany me to my friend S~'s show Sunday evening. (Merciless plug for those of you in New York: the very talented and brilliant S~ will perform in a singer-songwriter series at The Living Room Sunday between 5 and 7 pm.) (Listen to her here.)

As a birthday present to myself, I plan to step away from the computer as soon as possible. I don't want to contemplate another year passed, my ticking biological clock, all the difficult but for-the-better changes in my life this year, or anything else for that matter. Not right now, anyway. I'll leave you with a quote that an old friend jotted down for me fifteen years ago, which to this day, guides my life:

"Don't ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."
- Harold Whitman