roman..

we're getting closer.
hmmmm?
oh.
c'mon.
we're getting closer to the BIG day,
when i turn the corner and round up on official middle age.
that's real.
thursday, january seventh, is my berfday.
and this one is a decade demarcation and a new prefix
for my chronological time-spanning sprawl through spaces and places;
and for my inexorable crawl across and around the revolving evolving
circumnavigations that spiral outwards from,
and the inevitable pursuant overlaps through,
the expansive extensive and ephemeral ghost circles and smoke rings
of really-real Folk Life's warrior poetic  spirit and memory.
damn.
that's a thing,
and it's only a few hours away.
but,
what i mean to say and convey is,
i'm turning 40 in two days.
yeah.
i know.
but,
do you know what the roman numeral designation is for 40?
it's XL.
c'mon.
that's pretty effing dope.
and i think i can live with a year and a day of it.
why?
obviously,
because too much is the right amount,
and beginning at exxxtra-large is definitely a step down the right path.
word.
*
y'know what's good?
cake.
but, we'll get to that in a little minute.
i have to say,
i've only made a few friends since i moved to the woodsly goodness.
i'm not very surprised, at all, that i haven't been supersaturated with requests for my
companionship, conversation, or even my culinary competency by this community.
by and large,
i think i'm more for the literate and considerate,
the capable and the culpable,
the aware and the awake and the actively participating pursuers and purveyors
of pure-being expert inter-over-reactivity.
that's the truth.
so,
you'll have to imagine how surprised i was when my co-worker,
emma, made me a pretty elite early berfday cake.
mmhmm.
i got to munch it up a few days early because our days off are different,
and i'm as sure as sh!t that i will NOT work on my berfday.
after all,
berfdays are the worst days,
but,
they're the most important days, too.
without 'em, there's no you to enjoy and endure and enact and exact
the tolls and triumphs of every long cold hard night and every hard-styled day.
anyway,
it's a helluva cake,
and i think you should maybe just check the teleport:

wow.
neighbors,
coffee oreo.
and mocha, and oreo, and oreo, and chocolate.
yeah.
with those super-bon-bon balls of truffle jauns,
marked with the official romanic math,
and a custom crabtree cake topper with accurate color-coded ear and eye patches?
pretty cool, huh?
ha.
i was very surprised,
and pleasantly so.
i'm sayin'-
i'd actually forgotten about friends.
i mean it.
sure,
i have my faraway friends from since forever;
and also my most romantic lovely love interest and best friend;
but,
when it comes to actual, respectable real-life adult good friends?
there aren't too many that make the cut,
and now i get to add a new one to the list,
which is a good thing.
truly,
i'm thankful.
-
it's all really happening.
a new year,
a new decade,
a leap day in the accessible future,
and whole new set of circumstances.
this is What Is,
and the true story about all of it is being told right here and now;
never quiet, never soft.....