Older...

And no snarky comments from those of you who are older than me. Or younger. In fact, anyone who was not born the same day I was can just pipe down about "how old I really am." I'm older, dammit, and I'm feeling it.

Okay, now that that's out of the way. Thank you so much to everyone who made my (several) birthday celebrations so very special this year. As some of you know (and I'm sure all can relate) not every one of my birthdays has been so good. Of course, if that were not the case, I wouldn't appreciate the good ones nearly as much. Special thanks go out to Rob and Jen for being there (almost) the whole day and providing transportation for a good bit of it (and Rob for insisting on cake,) Andy and Shane for the loan of their lovely [porch]house at the chillaxing hour, Stephanie and Dominique for singing a birthday song a damned sight better than "Happy Birthday to You," to El Muskrat for a lovely belated birthday dinner, and to the lovely and talented (and if things go well, permanently gainfully employed soon) Gavagirl, for her plan to cook dinner this weekend.
It's really nice to know that your friends care about you, and sometimes it helps to see it on one special day (or a series of special days) even if they are pretty good about showing it all the rest of the time.

God, what has happened to my sneering, cynical tone? We'll find out next time.
Your Pal,
Dylan.

Vivid memory from the road.

We were driving into the chaos that is the interstate entering Memphis right around sunset. The sky was filled with thunderheads. I looked out the window and my heart skipped a beat.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am not a religious or superstitious person. Personally, I consider most religion equivalent to superstition and both equivalent to a defective intelligence-if this offends you, I probably don't care. I don't believe in god, the devil, or any of the rest. But what I saw from the interstate was astounding: a thunderhead, lit from the sunset in such a way that it appeared to be the head of some horned and fanged beast that was snarling at the ground underneath, lit from below by a red light that looked startlingly like the light put off by a lava flow, and as I stared, a light (yes, a plane taking off) taking forever to rise through this thunderhead, some brilliant jewel flying out of hell. I don't think those tabloid photos of "satan in the clouds around whatever" are complete forgeries anymore, and I now understand, perhaps, at least part of what makes the southern Mississippi valley the buckle of the bible belt. Nowhere else in my life have I felt the presence of dichotomous nature as much as crossing that river under that sky, and if I did it daily, I might very well seek some explanation beyond that of nature itself.

 
My Dad being congratulated by my aunt. 

More density arguments...

So having just returned last week from Chi-town, I feel there is another point to be made about urban density and its value to humanity. The suburbs suck. They are a pusillanimous attempt to offer newly-affluent farmer's kids all the comforts of open spaces without actually being on a farm. The promise of suburban living is that you will live without compromise, but the fact is that anyone who speaks about anything without compromise is either stupid or lying. If they're lying, you need nothing else. If they are stupid, consider that they are too stupid to comprehend basic thermodynamics. Or, more to the point, to accept the truism that nothing is free. And these days, even that promise is told half-heartedly. People want to own homes with a postage stamp of yard. That's it. They accept that this home will probably be made of cheap materials and all around ugly, but they buy because they believe they should. And then they live in hellholes made of cloned space and never ask why they are so miserable.

My dad did in fact graduate from law school. Pictures to come, I will be experimenting with Picasa. Yay.