Yet another one of our friends hit the big 3-0 last week. Babe and I got him this t-shirt:



I wish it was sold in women's sizes. You know I'd totally wear it out.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!



Me (angel) and Babe (convict) at a party in Hayward on Saturday

I finally got all of the pictures I had taken last month.

If you tend to be a philosophical person and have been feeling a desperate need for radical thoughts or personal insight, I suggest that you have pictures taken of yourself by a skilled photographer.

I suspect that a lot of us, especially those like myself, who don't have pictures taken of themselves often, probably have a somewhat warped sense of what we look like and of ourselves in general. I think that it's natural to base some, or much, of our self-identity on what we think we look like. While people-watching, we make guesses about strangers' characters, personalities and lifestyles based on what they look like to us. We know they do it back at us, but don't often get a chance to actually see what they perceive when they look at us. The conclusions we make that are based on the exterior could be right on, completely off the mark, or between the extremes. I figure the same applies to our perception of ourselves, even though most of us are not strangers to ourselves.

Pictures of yourself have the potential to show you what you don't see in mirrors or in your head. You might see a totally unfamiliar interpretation of who you are... perhaps based on what the photographer saw or what he/she wanted to show you or thought you wanted to see. You might get a reality-check. Or what you see may not actually be any closer to reality than the warped sense of yourself that you originally had... but it could still be revealing. You might be fascinated with what you see, as I was. You might even see yourself trying to communicate through your pictures... expressing what you really need to know or feel about yourself, but couldn't get through other means.

You could be forever changed. Or changed for just a few weeks or just days. But if you do tend to be a philosophical person and have been feeling a desperate need for radical thoughts or personal insight, even a few hours of novel perception could rock your world. Get your pictures taken.

What did my pictures reveal to me? Well, one thing was that I badly needed a haircut...

Damnit.

I pulled my left quadriceps tonight. I've never done that before. It hurts like CRAZY.

Damnit.

I knew I should not have agreed to be in a softball league with my friends. The truth is, I joined just to help them fulfill their three female quota for the team. I thought I'd get hit in the face with a softball before I injured any muscles.

I hadn't played softball very many times before joining the league. The only softball game I really remember playing when I was young happened when I was in seventh grade. We were segregated by gender in our PE classes. I was at bat, and I swung hard. I line drove that ball straight into the pitcher's face. She wore glasses, and they broke. She hated me forever thereafter, and I've had a fear of softballs flying into my face thereafter (but not forever).

I'm finally getting over that now, and was starting to get a feel for the game. But I think I'll have to sit out of games for a month now. And this was just the second game.

Damnit.

To clarify what I said earlier, what I want is to reconcile how old I am with how old I act and how old I feel. The numbers should all be equal. Equal to 30.

Last night, I watched a Bravo show titled "Great Things about Being 30". There were 20 silly and slightly amusing things. But since I have virtually no short-term memory anymore, I can't remember them well enough to provide a commentary on them.

One thing that I can almost remember... supposedly, people in their 30s are more likely to gravitate towards families and family-like interactions and atmospheres among their friends and their friend's families, because they desperately don't want to be alone or to die alone. "Clutching at straws"... was how this behavior for some people was described.

Apt. I like the imagery of that phrase, too. I can just picture in my mind, Babe and I clawing desperately at thin, feeble strands of dry, dead and faded grass, with disappointment and horror on our faces as, one by one, they each snap and leave us with handfuls of chaff, falling fast through our fingers like grains of sand...

I feel like such a baby, and I don't like it.

For the first time in a very long time, probably not since my childhood, I want to act my age.

But I don't know how to, and I don't know how to start.