The clock ticks! The calendar pages fly off the wall. The solar rises and units and rises once more. Winter is coming! And the wheel turns.

Which is to say, I’m uncmaxxing in my agemogging period, bruh, ngl.

Which is to extra to say, oh shit, I’m 50 years previous.

As it’s my birthday, I really feel it essential to say, no, no, you don’t must get me something — however for those who insist, then I word a donation to Authors Towards Guide Bans or Ladies Write Now wouldn’t be remiss, after which for those who additional insist that you simply wish to do one thing for me, I politely word that the factor you are able to do for me is a factor you additionally do for your self, which is shopping for my books, and even (gasp) preordering my subsequent ebook, The Calamities, from my native bookseller or yours. No requirement! However hey, pre-ordering is cool as a result of for those who’re like me you’re gonna neglect you probably did it after which the ebook is in the future going to ambush you, besides it’s an ambush of bookish pleasure as a substitute of like, a man leaping out of the shrubbery with a sock filled with 9-volt batteries.

If you need some grand rumination on the turning of the wheel, I can level you to a factor I wrote a pair weeks in the past, about growing older and legacy and melting butter. You must learn it! Or don’t, I’m not your Dad.

(I’m clearly your bizarre uncle.)

In a basic sense, I’m attempting very laborious to be sanguine in regards to the 5 a long time I’ve been allowed to exist on this planet. They had been a little bit tough early on however I settled into a reasonably good factor, and it’s laborious for me to be mad at the place I’m at and what I’ve executed. Nice household, a profitable and persisting profession doing what I like, a home, a freezer filled with ice cream which is able to most likely be the explanation I die early as a result of fucking hell, ice cream is admittedly good you guys. And it’s not simply the place I’ve been or what I’ve executed, I even have… extra to do, which can be good! I’ve plans! Plans inside plans! Sharks with lasers on their heads, all that. And wonderful, most likely some extra books or no matter.

On the similar time, you realize, my very own father died when he was 63 — prostate most cancers obtained him when he took a carefree hole yr off his medical health insurance (this was pre-ACA, and it’s why I imagine the ACA would’ve saved his life). So, by that metric, it offers me 13 extra years earlier than I am going.

Now, I acknowledge it doesn’t work like that. I definitely intend to beat his quantity and carry on kicking nicely previous that time. However he died pretty younger and my son by no means even met him. I didn’t meet my grandfather — both of them, really — as a result of they each died younger. So, yeah, mortality is on my thoughts there just a bit bit.

And the physique is eager to remind. I’m undoubtedly in my “I damage myself by sleeping” epoch, now. Issues ache. Randomly! They only ache. I’ve realized the phrase “achilles tendonitis,” an issue I obtained by largely beating plantar fasciitis, one other phrase I needed to study. I beat the one factor and precipitated the opposite, I suppose? Who is aware of. Additionally I feel I’ve arthritis? I might need carpal tunnel? My ear rings on a regular basis? (To be truthful, it has been ringing for many years, in order that’s not an previous man factor, it’s a “my ear is damaged” factor.) I discover myself on the garden, waving my cane at planes, yelling about chemtrails? Okay, possibly not that final half. But.

It’s not all unhealthy. I’m nonetheless operating — not metaphorically, I imply, I actually run (aka jog, aka gallumph sweatily) and final yr I actually upped my sport a superb deal. In years beforehand I ran a 5k each month — final yr I used to be doing one most weeks. So in quite a lot of methods I’m more healthy now than I’ve ever been. It’s simply, I can really feel the machine breaking down, you realize? It’s like a washer or dryer form of juddering throughout the ground — it nonetheless works! Nonetheless will get the garments clear! But it surely makes noises now. It’s doing stuff you didn’t inform it to.

I do know my physician is gonna wanna put me on a buncha meds quickly — for hypertension (which is barely excessive after I go to the physician’s, weirdly), excessive ldl cholesterol (my household has had excessive ldl cholesterol genetically, as we’re pasty Jap European varieties, however none of them had coronary heart points), possibly a GLP, I dunno. Hey, no matter, fuck it, at this level, get me on that statins-beta-blockers-cocktail. I’ve an upstairs and a downstairs bottle of Advil, so I’ll simply take it after I take these.

See, even now I’m doing what previous folks do — we speak about boring well being shit. My spouse and I went out to eat a couple of yr in the past they usually seated us subsequent to a desk of The Olds, and their total two-hour dialog was about severe medical procedures described in graphic element. Am I that, now? Shit. Shit!

No matter. It’s wonderful. I’m gonna hold writing books until my fingers fall off after which I’ll write them with my hand-stumps till they stiffen to a chitinous lump after which I’ll simply yell my books into a little bit mini tape recorder and mail them to you all individually. Gonna hold touring. Gonna hold consuming ice cream with the key hope it’s really actually good for you and Huge Pharma Doesn’t Need You To Know This One Trick Of Consuming Ice Cream. Gonna hold residing and loving until the residing and stops and my loving turns to undead rage, whereupon I’ll stagger upon the earth, my fierce starvation for human flesh driving me ineluctably ahead.

For now, I’m writing the sequel to The Calamities, referred to as Chaos Reigns. I simply turned in copy-edits on my subsequent center grade, The Boy Who Dreamed Of Doorways. Then I’m out of contract as soon as once more and given {that a} writing profession is a sequence of cliffs you gotta bounce over like Evel Knieval, I greatest get to constructing the following ramp earlier than I crash towards the rocks in fireplace and blood. I’m additionally engaged on a The Staircase within the Woods movie script as a result of, fuck it, why not? There’s possibly some curiosity in me doing it, so away we go.

We’ll see the way it goes.

So, I suppose right here’s to 50? Onward and upward and all that. At some point nearer to dying. Yadda yadda yadda.

Cheers, of us, and thanks for being right here.