Turning 30

Why this image? Because coverbrowser.com ranks it thirtieth in its list of all-time worst album covers, I do believe on account of the balloons.

In a few days I turn thirty, an artificial but nonetheless significant landmark for these reasons:

1. I can no longer listen to The Smiths without feeling self-conscious and yucky.
2. Injuries? As I write this: left foot, right knee, right wrist, right elbow.
3. I have something in common with Russians at a party.
4. The glial cells in my brain have stopped producing myelin, or, if they haven't, they will soon.
5. "Daffodil time / is past."
6. Now my choices are Gustav von Aschenbach or the repulsive, red-haired spectacle of age.
7. All my favorite tennis players, even the old ones, are younger than me.
8. When I push myself, I usually end up hurt or sick, or at least dehydrated.
9. Doubling my age pushes me out of the "died too young" category.
10. Time to start thinking about who inherits my ten billion Marc Almond albums, books on meter, scary Scandinavian movies, my mean rabbit Birthday, and all the other unlovable proof that I existed.

Happy Birthday, Koko, on the twenty-sixth of September, one day after Glenn Gould was born and one day before he suffered the stroke that would kill him a week later. It's my cozy spot in the cosmos.