Well, today heralds another birthday. My forty-second, if you must know. For the record, forty-two's not so bad. By now you're solidly into your forties and pretty adjusted to the idea of it. You've grown accustomed to all the new aches and pains and to the increasing acceptance of your own mortality. Forty-two also has some literary significance. It's the Ultimate Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything, according to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It's also the number of years overdue that book is in that Shel Silverstein poem.
Forty-two is scientifically significant as well. It's the product of the first three terms of Sylvester's sequence and is a primary psuedoperfect number. (No, I do not know what any of that means.) It's also the atomic number of molybdenum. (Yes, I do know how to pronounce that.)
So, like I said, not so bad.
Malcontent-Strip-048-42
On the crueler side, this birthday lands precariously close to Daylight Savings Time. It's vaguely depressing to wake up and realize you're forty-two years older and then realize you've also lost an additional hour.
I also share this day of birth with the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, one Mr. Mitt Romney. Of course he shares his birthday with both Jack Kerouac and the soft-spoken singer-songwriter James Taylor, so really, how bad can he be?
Anyway, it's going to be a good day. I have a haircut appointment and a date for steak dinner with my fabulous sweetheart. I have the day off and a stack of presents to unwrap. I have a great life, a beautiful apartment and a terrific collie.
I think I'll stop now, before I jinx it.