47

I turned 47 yesterday. I’m not sure how that happened, waking up and finding myself three years from the epic year of 50. When you’re younger you celebrate each birthday and you just have this vague idea that you’re getting “older,” but it’s abstract (unless it’s a big year: turning 18, turning 21, etc). When you’re 47, you think “holy shit, I’m three years away from 50!”

Other things that happened the year I was born: A Charlie Brown Christmas debuted on CBS, Ed White made the first U.S. space walk, SpaghettiOs and Slurpees were launched, and The Pillsbury Doughboy was born. (I don’t want to think about what other similarities me and the Doughboy now have.)

I watched Drive, a terrific movie that some people seem to dislike because it’s moody and relies to much on 80s-ish music and does as much with quiet and nifty camera work as it does with action. Last year a moviegoer sued the makers because she thought the movie was going to be more about driving, more like The Fast & The Furious. What I can tell you about Drive is that it’s not like The Fast & The Furious. I hope that makes you want to see it even more.

It’s a modern noir, really. James Sallis has written a sequel to the book, Driven, and I’m going to have to pick that up.

I also had cheesecake and sat in my apartment and watched TV and read and surfed the web and wrote a lot. Which, if you take out the cheesecake, describes every night of my life.

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I’m working on the first issue of The Letter, the new monthly letter that I’m going to snail mail to people starting this month. To get the ball rolling, here’s a special offer for those reading this paragraph: if you buy a subscription before next Sunday, June 17, you can get it for only $6.00. That’s 50% off! Click the link above and read what it’s all about and see if it’s something you might enjoy getting in your mailbox every month.

And thanks!