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Thursday: I interviewed a woman who may or may not have known who I was. She asked me several times and couldn't remember that it was Thursday, but then she would catch me off guard with a steel swipe of her pilot's eyes and describe in detail how her dad taught her arm wrestling tricks.

"See," she said, raising a skinny old arm, "I've still got muscle." She folded her hands on her lap and grinned out the window toward the ocean then looked back at me to see my reaction.

After two hours of talk, most of it circular and folding back to what we'd said before, I said goodbye and spent the rest of the afternoon at the beach. A stark naked empty beach on a gorgeous warm and sunny day...the only such day in a weekend destined to be full of cold and wind.







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Birthdays are the perfect time to change everything in your life, pretend you're someone else and claim their set of virtues, throw away old pieces of that former coil of waste, sin and failure and forge ahead into a future glittering golden in the afternoon sun. Birthdays are also a good time for presents and cake made with beer and all what you hold dear unto your heart around you like brothers and sisters who may or may not be related to you, plus parents and dogs and towns where you have grown in five ways for fifty years or maybe just since you were four and left Nebraska.

It was my birthday yesterday and thanks to working on today (a national holiday) I got to shove off Thursday afternoon and spend Friday in Portland with my family and all that afternoon with a friend, roaming a Chinese garden in the middle of the city and indulging in imported statuary.

I always make a big deal out of birthdays in private. I don't usually have parties, but I do get symbolic and ceremonial about a week before my birthday. There is the one legendary year when I forgot it was my birthday. That was the only year I didn't sit down and re-evaluate all facets of my being for a full seven days, write copious notes, burn key items, and visit the haunts of my youth. Because, normally, that's how I spend my birthday week. As I've gotten older and busier, there's less time to go fully pagan and candle-lighting. This year, I thought briefly about what it means to turn 23. I've decided it doesn't mean much. All it really means is time and I have increased my time or traversed another year of my time. I like the comfortable feeling of time piling up beneath my feet. Someday I will be wise. As the hours accumulate and millions of seconds filled with mistakes, like oily rainbows inside of bubbles, soaring along and popping and making everything taste like soap, so comes wisdom like a really good meal or that person who reminds you of God and just when you're about to bang your head against the wall in frustration, you realize like Scrooge you are not the man you were, nor will you ever be that man again. Thank God. Especially since I am not a man.

But anyway.

Thanks everyone who said happy birthday to me because I know you meant it and that's incredible. I feel very loved and buoyed up on all those passing glances of love and care. And, Mrs.Payne, you made my week. It's funny. Whenever I've been feeling the least discouraged these past few years, someone comes along who says something and it's just what I need and you were that person on Sunday. I think all you did was come straight up to me and you gave me a huge hug and said Happy Birthday. Both you and Mr. are always so encouraging though. I want you to know how much I appreciate it.

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On a completely different and decidedly less dewy note. Here's what went in to the paper today. I wrote this:

Fatal car crash

I'd give a lot to know what's going through his mind in this picture. At work, I have a wall of mug shots to help me keep track of who's in custody and where their case is at in the system. I wonder always what's going on behind their eyes in that moment, standing against the wall, looking at a brown-shirted deputy wielding a camera.

You should also read this: C. goes clamming. First-person narrative!

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My plans for today are many and it's already 2:30, so I need to scoot. Drive safe. Don't be an idiot and drive unsteady.