It's my birthday, today.
Somehow, I have managed to complete 66 circuits about the sun which is — in some ways — a bit of a surprise to me. Maybe it shouldn't be, since the men in my family typically live into their 80's and 90's.
Some people seem to be born with "Energizer Bunny energy" while others dwell primarily at the opposite end of that scale... and I would be among the latter. I have often felt like I would be unlikely to reach any kind of old age, the same way big dogs live shorter lives than small dogs, on average.
Not that 66 is really old, anymore.
"70 is the new 50," and all that rot.
Ironic that I find myself living in a society (meaning the USA) that's obsessed with youth and anti-aging... and yet is now one of the only industrialized nations with a declining life expectancy.
Things that make you go "Hmmmm..."
Writing a bit early today because Mrs. Denmarkguy and I are heading out on a (hopefully lovely) day trip to the historic Crescent Lake Lodge... possibly one of the most beautiful and peaceful places in the western part of the USA. It's part of the National Parks system, and hopefully will stay that way... unless the powers that be decide this pristine forest land is better used for timber to build more houses nobody can afford.
Hhhrrrumpffff....
Crescent Lake is a gorgeous glacier and snowmelt fed lake that's always a remarkable deep blue color, thanks to the complete absence of the kind of algae that typically turns freshwater bodies a greenish-brownish shade, even if they are quite clean.
I was never big into birthdays... my own, or anybody else's.
"But what about when you were a kid?"
I was still not into birthdays, perhaps because they served mostly to land the reality of being "that awkward unpopular kid" that people often forgot to invite.
OK, that was a moment of pity party.
I was actually more like invisible than unpopular and there were many reasons for that, including the fact that we traveled and moved around so much that I was seldom in a single location where I would have a friend group to celebrate and hang out with.
That did, however, lay the foundation for not really caring once I became an adult, primarily because I had no real basis/attachment to birthdays being "anything special."
We did celebrate my dad's birthday, but that ended when he died when I was just 18, and my mother typically avoided birthdays because her image-obsessed ego actively rejected any references to the idea that she was aging... a life philosophy that pretty much kicked in at the moment she determined that she could no longer pass for someone who'd just walked off the pages of some glamour magazine.
In a way, today's outing represents a sort of meaningfulness in the sense that I just can't ever bring myself to care about "stuff" as a representation of caring. The only stuff I care about is really good food and treats... and what we might call "quality time."
My perfect day is one on which I am liberated of the feeling that I have to serve, fund, work for or otherwise carry a sense of obligation something/someone extremal to me. It's a "nothing day;" where the constantly whirling apparatus inside my brain can simply be shut off.
The actual color of Crescent Lake on a sunny day!
If there is anything I feel grateful for at this stage of my life, it is mostly the fact that I have managed to make peace with the weird attributes that make me me, without significantly imposing that chaos on other people who see those attributes merely as a nuisance that require actual thinking and caring to fully comprehend.
I embrace that I am afflicted by various conditions that present certain challenges, but I have moved well past suffering from them... as many people seem to, as they rain down chaos and distress on everyone around them.
And so, enough about that.
I need to get ready for today's outing... maybe I'll share some photos later (or not!).
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As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly and uniquely for this platform — not posted anywhere else. 2026.08.30 09:58 PDT 1630/2894
