24 on the 24th

Hi. It's my birthday :)

That's right: 24 revolutions around the sun ago, I was born. At 3:30 AM, no less, which perhaps explains why my blog entries are always posted in the wee hours of the night. I was a night owl from day 0.

Mum used to tell me that I was a "white-knuckled baby," having entered the world the most reluctantly out of her four children. I like to think that I was making a dramatic pause before my grand entrance. The more likely truth is that my big head had to triangulate the exact physics of just exactly how it was going to navigate those tempestuous moments through bone and sinew, that delicate dance all babies do on their way to the world. And man was my head big.

I am happy to say that I am glad I made it. Life, all of it, has been crazy and good.

There were a couple of awkward moments I could've done without. If you ever see my sophomore picture from high school (which you never will, and if you do I will interrogate you and find out who showed it to you so I can persuade them that their remaining fingers would be best kept out of their yearbook (this means you, Calland!)), you would know exactly which years I am referring to and why.

This is the first birthday where I am truly okay with the thought of getting older. I don't really feel any different than I did when I was 22. I feel a little stronger, a little more confident. I have fewer questions about myself and what I believe, which is something I used to fear but now realize is an act of mercy, a reward for surviving adolescence. The people in my life who I love are still here, and I've added a couple more to the list. I drive a better car, own nicer shirts, live in a new place, and have better sex. Things have changed, but largely for the better. So many new experiences and beautiful places seen...

I started a journal when I was a child. I think I was 8, and I had a tiny little notebook, no bigger than my palm, in which I scrawled my secrets and my stories. In it, I made a list of things I wanted to do in my lifetime. Mom had suggested the exercise, and her flowing script on the faded pages reminds me of the winter evening we sat on the couch and wrote down them down. Some of them are wonderfully dreamy: Fly an airplane. Have a big train-set. Own an old-fashioned car. It's so neat to hear old priorities read aloud, made alive again.

[I truly did desperately want an old-fashioned car. There was a 1926 Buick 8 parked outside a dusty mechanic's shop where I grew up, and I remember staring at it every time we drove by. I don't really remember what it represented to me. I only knew that it was old, and that it had been beautiful once.

One day, to my great delight, we stopped there and my parents asked if I could sit in it. I can still remember the hazy smell, the coarse fibers of the seat fabric, the big numbers inside round gauges, the cold metal of the steering wheel...]

Other dreams seem oddly precocious. One of the things I wanted to do was see Victor Borge in concert. Most people my age have never even heard of him, but when I was 8 I was already a fan. I remember my grandparents watching a special of his in our living room, and I thought he was some kind of magician. He died in December 2004, but not before I saw him in concert in September, my birthday present from Dad when I turned 22. What a night! I felt like a child in his presence, the way he held the audience, the way he mastered the piano.

So, I'm 24 today. Which is one year less than half of 50. Yes, I am old. I can feel it in my knees. I can see it on my scalp. But I also feel stronger in other places, physically and spiritually. Maybe that's what the game of life is, our weaknesses the furniture in a big living room that we move around as we get older, adjusting for the shifting sunlight. Maybe all my little questions have condensed like water on a glass of cold milk into one big question, THE big question: Why? Why am I here? What is it I was sent here to do? I want so much to be able to answer the question without selecting E)All of the above. Peace about that question would be an awesome birthday present. No fucking certificates, Universe. I want it wrapped with a bow. And a funny card.

The dodgeball championship is tonight. This is for all the marbles. Mark, Mat and I had a great warm-up session earlier. As silly as it sounds, my experience with Dodgeball in many ways reflects my life. When I started, I was reluctant and afraid. I didn't think I could do it. I would drop easy catches, I couldn't throw worth shit - I came into it with white knuckles.

Now, though... now I salivate for it, can't wait to sweat for it. Every time I go out onto that little court in that little building in the big world, I become less and less afraid. Call it one revolution around the sun. Putting the couch in the corner. Turning the wheel on the Buick 8...

Yours always,
Martin