It wasn't the best birthday,
Not that 39 is exciting anyway,
But I wasn't quite prepared
For what my brain threw my way today

What is even the point?
In turning 39?
Next year Clare and I are going to Ethiopia
- to sneakily go back in time ;)

38 was old enough
But still not quite that bad
39 is a lot more daunting
For there are no more "30's" to be had

But a few days ago I met a friend
Who just turned 70 last week
What was even more shocking
- she is still much fitter than me!

Her grandson is now 17
I once taught him to bake cakes
Back when I shared her house
Duncan was at primary school for goodness sake!

I don't know if Clare feels the same
About this weird age to become
Or whether as some say its just a number
My 70yr old friends are forever young

I have so much admiration for Clare
With her determination to succeed,
She does make me feel younger
Although turning 39 is still **** - it must be agreed :/

But I was determined to make the best
Of the last year beginning with "3"
Although I dramatically failed
Got dressed, panicked, then ate grapes until tea...

I did let down Teresa
I admire her so much too
We were supposed to eat cake
And how I miss our conversations about poo..

But here I still am
Dressed for both Africa and the North Pole
Required a walking pole to get to the pub
With snow turned to ice - it wouldn't be pretty to fall...

But I finished my day with a whisky
A wee dram to still being 30 something
A single malt Aberlour came to my rescue
To compliment the huge amount of Diazepam

I shall try again tomorrow
Looking forward to seeing Carryn again
So I officially cancelled my birthday
And tomorrow I will try again

But my goodness how Im so grateful
To some very special friends
Here in Aberdeen,
Mary and Glyn are those friends

My brain tortures me frequently
And today we had so many plans
They all went down the toilet
Quite literally (!) but gladly from the right end..

So generous are my adopted family
I can never be grateful enough
For putting up with my panic
Understanding my brain says its "had enough"

It might have been a ****** birthday
But I don't know where i'd have been
If it were not for Glyn and Mary
And their endless compassion and understanding.

To all my friends - sorry for being "weird", and I really do appreciate all your kindness with all my heart.. ❤️

We live gas station to gas station. Motel to motel. Roleplaying different stories.  Living out the bohemian fantasies of a teenage reverie. So when we check out the next morning all these little lives are left behind to exist in the folds where reality meets lazy Sunny D daydreams. And when we are old and grey and return one day to these places in holy reminiscence, our nerves will be pricked with a kaleidoscope of memory jolting sensations. I’ll turn to you and say, “Don’t you remember, my dear?” The honeydew perfume on my wrist as you kissed me up and down like a cartoon in the kitchen of the Sandman Motel? Or the feel of the unpolished, terrazzo floor in the Sunny Moon dining room with my right hand in yours and the other clutching a stolen bottle of my Father’s Aberlour? I’ll remember the times when I didn’t mind the 7/11 taquitos and you didn’t mind getting up early to watch the “Hot Donut’s” sign light in the the Krispy Kreme’s front window. Fresh baked pastries and gasoline and turquoise curtains from the seventies blowing in the hot summer seabreeze. Getting lost in milky sheets. We were a sitcom. We were romance. We were tragedy a la mode with guitar strings built out of rawhide and teeth made of ***** pearls tangled in conspiracy. These are the things I’ll smell, I’ll see, and I will remember when it was just you and me, pretty baby. Just you and me and the ******* Dream, traveling from sea to shining sea, living cheap and easy and utterly free.

Wednesday night drunk,
the sun lays so still
in its gray sarcophagus;
the sandy mid-rise
across the way
spits yellow blandings
into dead clouds;
the Aberlour bottle
raking its way
towards recycling.

O, that casual dismissal,
how it decimates -
"Thanks, Ev. You too."
But what do I know
of the little surgeries
of her evening?  
More whisky spills -
the sun's canopic heart?
I drank it,
it's gone.