Interesting couple of days.

Because of a casual remark concerning long-lost friends, I've spent quite a bit of time ferreting out a couple of folks I haven't seen or heard from in 25 or 30 years. As it turns out, they've turned out rather well. Both have PhDs in their chosen (and beloved) fields, both now have professorships, both have published, toured, etc. Granted, I have no idea about more subtle achievements such as family or that vague marker, happiness. Also granted, neither were exactly the Wild Child that I probably was, but they did manage to make something of their lives, something special, noteworthy; something to make a person proud of his accomplishments.

So now the logical next question: what exactly have I made of my life? Despite the "...gotta wear shades" early promise, I have no doctorate, no book, no professorship - no achievements of any kind, really. Yes, I do have two daughters of whom I am immensely proud, a marriage of twenty years and counting, a 200 year old house in the middle of a couple hundred acres of beautiful country, and countless other blessings, but that's not the issue here.

Maybe it's part apples and oranges, part rationalization, but while it may look like I've got bupkis to show for my half century here, I don't really feel like that's the story. I'd at least like to believe that if money and professional accomplishment had meant that much to me, I would have achieved a fair portion of each. (Hell, I'd at least have married money, even if I didn't make my own.) I took the road that led in, into places that were messy and dark and frightening, and I've managed to clean it up quite a bit. I've thought through some things that most folks aren't about to bother with, and arrived at conclusions that are pretty much my own. I'm comfortable with myself and my place and my life, and look forward to the second half of it.

I received a pair of books for my birthday: Is Tiny Dancer Really Elton's Little John? Music's Most Enduring Mysteries, Myths and Rumors Revealed, by Gavin Edwards, and What the Bleep Do We Know?, by William Arntz et al. Both are wonderful ways to spend a few hours, and it pleased me to realize that I was equally at home in either world - sex drugs and rock n roll vs cosmology and quantum theory. Twenty five years ago I was cocktail party conversant in either world; now I'm truly at home there and, more to the point, can be myself in either place and crowd. That's gotta be worth a graduate degree in something or other.


Today is the equinox and I feel big changes on the horizon. Balances shifting in more ways than one.

Starting tomorrow, I will be fierce.