timeline

five years ago i was living at the guest house at my parents'. i was doing 'night of the iguana' at san pedro playhouse and driving my dad's ford F150.

ten years ago i was living at cathy's house in truckee. people were worried about Y2K and i think my only job was at the health department, plus KITUS.

fifteen years ago i was living in new york city and working at cooper's coffee bar on columbus avenue (i don't think it exists anymore). i was working on the play we were about to do in the summer with KITUS.

twenty years ago it was the spring of my junior year of college. mom sent me a care package that brought me to tears. it included an earth day t-shirt and a Goofy watch. i was in tunc's production of 'the learned ladies' and had decided to stick it out instead of quit school. i came very close to quitting, but yury convinced me to stay.

twenty-five years ago i was a sophomore in high school, in love with dave, paige, alex, traci, yvonne and kirk. i didn't want them to graduate.

thirty years ago i was at the end of sixth grade. i wasn't very happy, but i probably looked ok.

thirty-five years ago i was still pretty happy, though many of my creative impulses were being squashed. i danced and sang "jesus christ superstar" on the splintery back porch of our house on callaghan.

forty years ago they probably brought me a cake with one candle in the middle. i was very big and white and showered with love.

i am 41 years old today.

oh, all the times i've started over, had a sense of renewal and knew that things would be better from here on out. sometimes the energetic resuscitation lasted a week, sometimes a few days. i hadn't counted on entropy. as jaded as i may be, by now, i start over again today! ...with full knowledge of entropy's wiles, and of my own habits, comforts and changeabilities. 

as a kid i would get pissed when i wanted something and my mom would say, "maybe for your birthday." usually by the time the birthday rolled around, all the things i'd wanted had been forgotten. "what do you want for your birthday?" ... "uh... i don't know. i forgot." 

so, at some point shortly after i became an adult, i began to espouse the "every-day-as-birthday" theory, in which that kind of self-centered happiness which allows one to buy gifts for oneself takes over. not only to buy gifts, but to allow oneself a lot of love, mostly in the form of potential-- the idea that there is something wonderful happening, in just a minute, around the corner... NOW. this is the ideal i strive for.

it's fuckin good to be alive.