Just a Gwai Lo - fun within prescribed limits

Today I celebrate the end of my 28th year and the beginning of my 29th. This is the only time that the day of the month will match my age. Remember last year, when I said by this time I'd try to lost 28 pounds? Didn't quite work out that way. Still about the same, but not feeling as good about things. I need a better relationship with food, which is just a fancy way of saying I need to eat better and exercise smarter.

I do like the attention of birthdays, but have come to think that they're pretty selfish, when one thinks about it. Sure, it's a day of the year where it's okay to be selfish, and that's fine, but the day celebrates something you, as the birthdayee, didn't really have anything to do with. This is really the anniversary my mom became a mother (for the second time) and my father became a birth-father for the first time and my sister became my sister. My brother gets to celebrate his becoming a brother too, though he was born about 2 years after me.

The last week has seen me go to Courtenay for my high school reunion. I saw some old friends and they told me their story. The one that stayed on my mind, still, was that of Bill, the point guard and captain of the basketball team on which I was a forward. He and I attended basketball camps together, and were often roommates in hotels when we went to tournaments. A long-time mountain biker, he broke his back a year or so ago, and came to the reunion in a wheelchair, a permanent condition. He wouldn't let me feel sorry for him, though, and he was the Bill I remember all those years back, a smart, tough as nails loudmouth but not an asshole.

I took my lovely girlfriend to see my hometown, and drove her around the valley, which made me feel like a big man. I must have got sunstroke or something on the way back to Vancouver, though, putting a damper on some of our later plans for the rest of the week, including missing the fireworks on Wednesday. Another sad departure at the airport, with at least two more such departures before the end of the year, and more after that. But I knew what I was getting into, and I have no regrets.