Birthday bitch

Today was my birthday, and it was looking like a rough one. I did my 2nd 5- or 6-mile walk in 2 days, trying to get my overloaded sense of failure under control. Wasn't I supposed to have someone to come home to? Weren't there supposed to be kids involved -- or at least lots of pets? A profession, full of activity and development? And so on and so forth. Fun stuff.

This evening, after all my plans fell through (and i usually work it out to at least Plan C; had it out to Plan E today) I wandered down the dock to find Regis the only person home whom I knew well enough to intrude upon.

Regis is a pleasant Frenchman (turns out that's not a complete oxymoron) who looks rather like a laid-back Jeremy Irons. There has been some twitchiness between us because, I gather, we're not sure who has a crush on whom. But he's good company when he forgets about that, full of good stories and wry humor.

I went over with his favorite tipple, which is also one of mine. He's both a cheap date and a gentleman, so we wound up drinking mostly his. After at least an hour I said, "Come have dinner with me. It's my birthday, it's been a hell of a 42 years, and I need the company. All I want from you is a couple more stories."

"What do you mean, a hell of a 42 years?" he asked.

That was a question I couldn't answer honestly when sober. I said, after gaping briefly, "Where do I start? Abuse, molestation, attempted murder --"

"Okay, let's go have dinner."

I hadn't even gotten to the second half of my life!

So we had a stellar dinner and, despite some proper Corsican reservations on his part, I snaked the bill. It was a smashing success because here it is, after 10:30, and I'm feeling better than I have in days: not exhausted, not wrung out, smiling easily and full of good humor after chatting with someone who remembers the world 30 years ago from a standpoint not far from where I was at the time. And who has seen some of the best movies made in the interim, and made a point of finding those locations and forming impressions about the nature of moviemaking therefrom.

Good fun.

Not sure what this has to do with boating, but as a liveaboard (or even a sneakaboard), the distinction between the work of boating and the work of getting through life can get very thin. As Regis remarked this evening.