It has been a long time since I posted here.

It is Ash Wednesday. I have left my Church long ago, but my bones are Catholic, and while I can no longer identify with it in any way, I mark this day as a beginning. We wait for Spring, and new life, and we reflect on choices.

I can say without pity or irony that when one is over 65, the concept of ashes to ashes, dust to dust has a very real meaning.

I do breath/meditation exercises about five days out of seven. I have been doing them for some years. I am still woefully inadequate in clearing my mind and focusing my attention. But I am still learning.

Many people that I know and love, young and elder, are dealing with infirmities and illness and medical woes and the slag of daily living. I offer them good thoughts and strong karma.

And I send Valentines to you all. <3  <3  <3

Last week I celebrated my 65th birthday. This makes me officially old. I don't want to hear any stuff from you guys about how young I look, or act, or anything. Sixty-five may be the "young old" but now I have a Medicare card and will soon have a senior discount on the MTA (I hate the term senior. Makes me think of high school - eeewww! I would like to be an elder, thank you. Heck, I am an elder.)

I am old. I hope to get a lot older. I feel reasonably well. I have allergies and agita, and I have had both of them all of my life. They require tending and attention, and sometimes I would rather not do either of those things, and just get up and do what needs to be done. But I can't always.

The body at 65 is different. I am learning to respect that. There are some things it will not do. Some things are slower, some are harder, some irritating. It means I have to think about things that before I could just experience. I need to plan more.

The brain at 65 is different too. I used to remember, well, everything. No  more. I write more stuff down. I cut myself more slack. I used to be able to write a book review in an hour. Now it takes me a morning (or an afternoon). Some things I grew used to thinking of as not so long ago turn out to be ten or twenty years ago. I am not used to seeing that my formerly dark hair is now quite silvery, although it's been five years or so.

I will teach, probably for the last time, online at Rutgers this summer. Then I have to think about retiring, more or less. I have no real pension, but I have no real job, either, so it may be time to turn to more reviewing and other kinds of writing and living on less than now. Perhaps.

My friends and family, always precious, are infinitely dear to me. I pretty much have cut off anyone who makes me crazy, or is unkind. I don't friend anyone on Facebook I don't actually like. I take almost no bullshit. (One of the things I have learned is that you always have to take some.)

Blessings on all of you. Peace.

I don't write here much, I tend to do it around holidays and birthdays and as a vacation journal. Yesterday I turned 65 (!) and I got an iPad and I am still processing both of those things. But I wanted to post pictures: of me, of my new iPad, and of the iPad cover.

                      

The iPad cover comes from http://www.oberondesign.com/iPad.php

I just finished a very late lunch of a bison burger and a Woodford Reserve. The bourbon cost as much as the burger. Both wre delicious.

I had a manicure and pedicure - TheInfomancer's Christmas gift to me - with a woman who fled New Orleans and Katrina with her family and moved first to Houston and then to Dallas. She was a massage therapist as well as a manicurist, so her technique was impeccable. I have pale pink fingernails and bright pink toenails. I couldn't bring myself to go for the gold or turquoise sparklies.

Today was bright with big sky but much cooler than yesterday. We took a cab to the Adolphus, one of those fine old 19th century dark wood and flowered carpet masterpieces for this morning's publisher's breakfast, and it was in the 30s. We were coatless, but it didn't matter as we moved from hotel to taxi to hotel.

TheInfomancer is still deep in Caldecott. I hope he will get to have dinner with us.

Everyone is so very nice, even when clueless, but most of them are actually not clueless, which is a relief. I have learned to look very closely at bills, however.

It's been about 25 years since I have been in Dallas. The last time, I put out a conference daily newspaper with my assistant at the time and my college student son. I remember that conference in a haze of 12-hour days and drinking Jack Daniels afterwards.

Everyone here is so nice. I talk too fast to make myself understood. I love the way the city is outlined in neon, and I adore the red Pegasus atop the Magnolia hotel.

http://www.pegasusnews.com/news/2011/jan/12/video-interview-dallas-flying-red-pegasus-origin/

This is what we see from our hotel room.

http://www.panoramio.com/photo/10518826

St John the Evangelist, the beloved disciple, the Gospel of John. Patron saint of writers. Name day of TheInfomancer.

I was four or five years old. I was completely certain Santa was real. I was sure he would bring me everything I wanted.

I live in a household of four adults, called The Yellow Submarine. (No, it isn’t yellow, but we all live in it).
There are books in the study, which is also my home office. There are books in all of the bedrooms. There are a few books in the living room, and the cookbooks in the kitchen. But where most of the books are is in the attic.
Sigh.

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There are too many books in the attic. They are in piles on the floor. They are in the low bookcases along all the walls, in sort of things-that-are-related order. But not really. I cannot find anything, usually, if it is in the attic. Also, I mostly cannot look up there. It is safe from the ministrations of our cleaning person, so the dust is profound, and about five minutes is all I can manage, even with mask, allergy meds, and Tiger Balm.
I am in my 60s, and the weight of those books is beginning to oppress me. I think I can get rid of a lot of them, at least the ones that are mine. There’s the physical aspect, I would have to get someone else to clean them and haul them downstairs to go to – where? The Strand? The library book sale? The trash (old brittle paperbacks I have no compunction about recycling to NYC Sanitation)? But I would love to have the floor free of books and the shelves arranged so one might actually see what one has.
Many of the books are not mine, however, and other folks, whose need to declutter is not so great, would have to take charge of their own. They may not choose to do that.
Then there are the philosophical issues. I spent about five minutes looking at a bookcase of titles of mostly review copies of books I loved enough to keep. At least half of them could go. The other half, I would probably keep, because I loved the books, because I might refer to them one day, because they might be hard to obtain otherwise. I cannot state criteria for these, though, and another day at least some of my choices would be different.
I talked long and hard about these issues with TheInfomancer, who basically believes we should either a) get rid of nearly all of them or b) leave them alone. He had some excellent insights from his viewpoint ,so far removed from my own.
None of this solves the problem for me.