Stuff On My Mind As Another Birthday Nears

Getting closer to another birthday that I never could imagine reaching in my younger days. Thoughts:

• Wish that I had an ounce of painting talent. Seems to me to be such a magical and satisfying thing, creating art in that manner. Moreso than writing or music. 
• My evolution into Howard Hughes / Howie Mandell territory continues. There's just certain things I now refuse to do without washing my hands. And certain things I really dread doing like shaking hands with someone. I can see a day where I will actually refuse.
• Excited beforehand for coming home from work to a three-game night, Blazers, Ducks and Beavers all playing basketball. Then I end up sleeping through 95% of it. It's been a developing trend over the past year. A symptom I fear of getting older.
• Another trend ..... walking through the dvd/blue-ray sections of stores and spoting all these titles of various television programs and it's, "The Complete Seventh Season" ...... and I've never heard of the show. 
• I'm armed with all this vacation time at work and I just can't seem to decide to use more than a day at a time here and there. That certainly wasn't a problem years ago. Now though, I feel like I have to be there when I'm in a position where someone else has to cover for me if I'm away. I wish one or two of those people would walk up to me and say convincingly: "Hey take a week or two off whenever you desire and don't worry about inconveniencing  me." They certainly don't seem to suffer from the same issues when it comes to using their vacation time and it's me doing the covering.
• Downtown Salem is developing into ...... well a real downtown. I love some of what I've seen open up lately and some of what I hear is coming soon. I've always wanted to live long enough to see a foot bridge from Riverfront Park to Minto Brown and construction is finally about to start. Let me walk across it a few times and then I might be ready to pass away happily. (I used the word "might" in hopes that the thought wouldn't turn into a self fullfilling prophecy.