the next 40 years

Sorry about the dark picture. Spanky took it, and she was getting a bit irritated by my attempts to take my own picture, so she just grabbed the camera and snapped this one off. But that's ok. Basically, just wanted a shot to show that I'm still alive. So a lot's happened:

1. I turned 40. Spanky threw me this awesome surprise party, and invited all my various groups of friends. I got really drunk, but I like to think that's the last time. I mean, what could possibly top that?  My birthday was at the end of April, and I spent the first few months of the year stressing out about it big time. I feel older physically, and sometimes mentally, when I talk to my assistant, for example, but I don't feel old, like, say, my parents. So it's been an adjustment to start thinking of myself as no longer in the 25-40 age group, but start thinking about what will be possible in the next phase of life. Crazy.

2. I cut off all my hair. I did that a couple of weeks before my birthday. I'm really enjoying it, but the plan is to let it grow in over the winter. I don't like looking this boyish all the time. I think it does suit me though, sadly.

3. I got a new tattoo. I did that a couple weeks after my birthday. It stayed in black outline for over a month while I traveled and worked, and then I just added the color about a week or so ago. Spanky's not a huge fan of the color. She liked it better just black. I don't know quite how I feel about it yet. I liked it black too, but I do love all the detail that you can see now that it's colored in.

look at that arm! thanks to the drumming...

It's a bookshelf, in case you couldn't tell. It goes all the way around, and the books are all different sizes and colors. It looked much more punk rock in black, but the color softened everything. Whatever. In a way, when you get a tattoo, you have to just surrender your idea of what should happen and just embrace it the way it turned out, because it's not going anywhere.

4. I did a bunch of travel. At the end of May, I spent a few days in San Francisco at a conference, then flew up to Portland, OR, to spend some time with my brother. Three days after I got back, I had to go to another conference, of Native American Studies, at Mohegan Sun up in Connecticut. Casinos kind of suck. I'm sorry if you gamble and love them, but the smoke and the noise and the lights were really antithetical to the seriousness of the scholarship of the conference.

So, now I'm back, and I think everything's kind of stabilized. I feel better about things, and am starting to get back to normal. It's a hard thing to verbalize, what was happening to me, but it was almost like I didn't recognize myself anymore. I wonder if that's what mid-life crises are like. Because that's what it felt like. So, anyway, I'm going to try to post more often. I don't know how that's going to go, but there are a few things I've been thinking about for a while. I want to do a drummer profile once a week. I want to obviously start talking more about my knitting, and since I'm just about to start a bigger lace project, I think this will all work out just fine.

I'm looking forward to what the next forty years will bring!