Another Birthday Passed

Another birthday just about over. It has me remembering my 17th when friends tried luring me away from home with an evening of bowling, so a surprise party could be prepared in my absence, upon my return. Though bowling did seem a bit odd and suspicious since I had a walking cast on my leg at the time from a basketball induced ankle sprain.

It's kinda funny but at least in my case, I barely give birthdays a thought anymore. This one arrived and passed by in a blur. A friend left a pie on my front porch. Another sang the first two lines of 'Happy Birthday' to me. That's all that one really needs .... a person or two to care. 

Now it's 364 days of hoping to reach the next life marker.

End of the Day

End of the day and I spend it taking photos of birds flying over and around the big yellow blur in the sky forcing its way through the clouds, thinking, "Don't fly too close to the sun.," and wishing it could be prolonged by some random act of time and science denial, and/or rebellion. 

Hmmmm, Watching the sky and birds and a setting sun .... Like there's a better way to end the day?

You see, earlier today, I found myself thinking about age and how in ten years I'll be xx years old and well let's just say, ten tears older and ..... well there's good odds, I won't be alive. But hopefully I will. And towards that goal, the voices in my head agreed to start making smoothies consisting of spinach, kale, celery and such but I keep giving in to the skeptical voice and putting it off with the promise that I'll start tomorrow. And that took place enough times that I had to return to the store for fresher ingredients. 

..... and tonight I looked at the boxscore for the Knicks game because I wanted to see how Josh Hart, who I really enjoyed and felt saddened a few days ago when he was traded from the Trail Blazers to New York .... I wanted to see his numbers and I saw plenty of points and rebounds, assists and steals, because that's what Josh Hart does and I'm positive he grabbed a defensive rebound or two and led his own one-man fastbreak, beating all the defenders down the floor for a layin, because he does that pretty regularly as well. None of this suddenly pulling up off the dribble for a three pointer for him. He's going to the hoop!!

..... and I keep thinking about a friend who touched my heart deeply and says that she loves me yet can't bring herself to talk to me and I won't go into why, but I keep circling back to her telling me that she'll always care for me. 

But at least I had that sun going down and the birds gliding over, under and around, in its wake. And a memory card in my camera, which is never a certainty as it's always 50/50 if it's in the camera slot or back home in the computer.

Damn grammar checkers. I put a comma and it suggests that I don't need one but I leave out a comma and it tells me that one belongs .... to the point that I don't know what to do. 

Life Story

Sometimes I think that all my attempts at poetry are just one long narrative or poem, broken up by verses or experiences. 

But then, isn't that what life is? 

Sometimes, even I, have moments of brilliance and epiphany.  😏

Numbers

Listening to sports talk radio today and they were talking about Kyrie Erving and how he chose number 11 .... listing the reasons. Things in his experiences involving the number 11. Like he played 11 games at Duke, he was born at 1:11, his dad wore number 11 in college, he scored his 11,000th point on March 11th, his name is eleven letters long, etc ... and I couldn't help thinking why I wore the number 14 at one point in life ..... because when the guy was writing down jersey number requests and I said, "twenty" .... he heard "fourteen."  

Notes and Stuff

Notes from a day where I was feeling especially glad to be alive .....

• Is it sad when one of a person's top five most anticipated days during a year is the NBA trade deadline? Or the day that pitchers and catchers report? A friend asked me to ask. 
• My fortune cookie: "You will soon receive a letter from a loved one."  .... I'll be checking the mailbox daily. 
• I took a leap of faith tonight. For the first time in at least the last twenty years, I stuck my feet into my slippers, without checking first for the presence of spiders.
• Horrific feeling when the tonearm escapes your grip and skates uncontrollably across the entire surface of a vinyl record. It's a sign of aging.
• I've probably mentioned this once or twice before but recording collecting pet peeve number one: Chewed up, ripped and/or torn spines and edges of the record cover. Why do people let their dogs and kids handle their records? Why do they obviously drive their cars back and forth over their records? It just pissess me off royally when I find a record with the sleeve all torn to hell. Have a little f'ing respect!! And even more so when the store owners attempt to hide the damage with plastic sleeves.