49

Hi, it’s me, birthday boy. On Friday the 15th of November 1974, at approximately quarter past five in the afternoon, your humble scribe popped into existence, and I don’t suppose I was terribly impressed about this situation. And somehow I’m still here 49 years later. Every time another birthday has rolled around since The Cerebro-Vascular Accident of June 9 2009, I find myself hopefully confused as to how I’ve made it through another year… and the longer I persist, the more confused I am about how and why. I was kind of impressed at making it to 35, having had that stroke at 34, that was big enough… and then the birthdays kept racking up, I made it through my late 30s, to 40, to my early 40s, mid-40s, into my late 40s and now on the downhill slide to my half century. I don’t understand it. Especially cos I don’t think I look too bad for nearly half a century, hairline’s not what it used to be but at least it’s still its natural colour, the white bits are generally limited to the beard, and the skin’s not too bad considering I do nothing to take care of it, or indeed of myself generally. Anyway, confused or not, here I still am.