I spent the first part of today cleaning up stuff around my apartment and answering random e-mails before heading over to Raphael and Florence's house to celebrate Raphael's (today) and my (tomorrow) birthday. Raphael made an excellent hot and pungent soup, and Florence baked awesome turkey legs. Two bottles of nice champagne, and all was well with the world.

It's always interesting when you get older to look back at how much you've changed over your life. It's a strange thing about birthdays, that unlike any other day of the year, they almost force you to confront both your mortality, and the fact and circumstances of your meager existance. I'm not sure if I recognize who I was 2 years, or even 1 year ago. Let alone 5 or 6 years ago when I was still in high school. I suppose when every year isn't such a large fraction of the whole, it becomes less of an issue, but at least for someone at my age, the changes are still comming fast and frequent.

We'll see what happens tomorrow on my birthday.