Let's have a party

It's half past three in the morning local time, so technically it's my birthday, but it never feels like one until I wake up. Erev birthday. Normally I measure my age by fictional characters, but the only thirty-six-year-old character currently occurring to me is Dean Priest in L. M. Montgomery's Emily of New Moon (1923) and while it's true I imprinted on him in fifth grade, it's also true that he is kind of a massive creep. I did learn Latin and Greek, and I have been to Rome (though not Athens), and it is almost true that I care for nothing save books nor ever have; I can't estimate my own cynicism, but my physical health is pretty crap. I think I will fall back on some general idea of tzaddiks until I think of someone better. I don't ruin other people's art when they love it better than me.

You are worth your weight in gold, you are worth your weight in sorrow, baby

Guess who has two thumbs and parents who gave them a book on Dorothy Arzner for their birthday?



Strictly speaking, I also have a book on Norman Bel Geddes and several cards and an IOU from my brother and his family for the original cast recording of Gian Carlo Menotti's The Consul (1950). It was a quiet day, which was not a bad thing after the intensity of the weekend. We had dinner with my family, surf and/or turf as was variously preferred; I had lobster Madison-style, which means I tore it satisfyingly apart with my bare hands. My mother baked a hazelnut-flour cake and my brother layered it with whipped cream and raspberries. My father took the back off Bertie Owen and blew out his fan with a can of compressed air and a dramatic clog of cat fur shot out, which explains the overheating. I just have to survive the work week until Friday, when a college friend has bought me birthday tickets to Les contes d'Hoffmann at the Met. I don't know how the year is going to go, but I am doing my best to be here.