Happy Birthday

This has to go into the books as an unremarkable birthday, except that I slept too late. There might be a bit of symmetry there if I could remember my mother ever telling me that I arrived in this world early, late or just about on time. Perhaps a remarkable aspect of me is that I can be all three. I am never perpetually late, early or just about on time.

I prefer to mix things up; it's the Aquarian in me.

Back to the birthday. It could not even be called remarkable in that it was defined by 2 and 3 feet high drifts of snow outside, because, after, all it is February in a northern climate even though such heavy falls are less common now then when I was younger.

What could be remarkable is that, except for shoveling snow, I take the dreary weather of my birth month with much more equanimity now that I am older, or as singer-songwriter-actor Loudon Wainwright III (63) told Terri Gross in an interview on "Fresh Air" this afternoon, "closer to the end."

I'm not a particular fan of LWJ, but I enjoyed the interview because Terri Gross asks good questions; for example wondering what it was like for him to revisit songs he had written as a young and very different man, singing with a much younger voice. I don't recall the answer; I just was struck by the empathy the question evoked in me, because I feel like such a completely different person from young Katy. The journey hasn't always been easy, but it has been interesting. I've learned a lot that has helped me to be, I hope, a better person.

There are 50 minutes left in my birthday. Snow is falling and time is passing, softening all hard edges.