I've talked a lot here about how I have to be careful what fiction I read when I'm working on a novel, and how sometimes I reach a point where I can't read any fiction at all. I don't think I've mentioned, though -- mostly because I'd forgotten about it until recently -- how I also tend to reach a point where I can't read most of the news. Our usual morning routine is to sit in bed for at least an hour drinking coffee and reading the Times-Picayune. Somewhere around the midpoint of a novel, I start crumpling and flinging more than my share of front pages. There's always something on the front page that raises my blood pressure, but most of the time I can take it; now, however, I'm in one of my phases where I must eschew the front page entirely, and read only the sports, the funnies, Dear Abby, and stupid little local stories about the city council, the latest senseless murders, Sheila Stroup and her donkeys, etc.

I don't actually like being uninformed. Last week, Chris's and my mother's jaws dropped simultaneously at the fact that I didn't know who "Bolton" was, and I felt stupid and irresponsible. Sometimes, though, it becomes necessary. I can't work the way I need to if I am distracted by hot red thoughts of lawmakers who want to ban all books containing homosexual characters, or debates on stem cell research, or moron liberals and pinhead conservatives ... there, you see?

Today is my last day of being 37, and I'd just like to put in a word for the fabulousness of getting older.* No, most of us old fogies aren't quite as firm or as cute as we used to be, and we have a lot more aches and pains, but the experience of becoming more confident in your ability to do the things you do well, being less concerned about your limitations, being more certain of your priorities in life, and giving less and less of a damn what anyone else thinks of you, expects of you, or wants from you is totally, totally worth it. And just because I'm a greedy sumbitch, I'll mention my birthday wish list one last time.


*And yes, I know 38 isn't really very old, but I have the skeleton of a 73-year-old and (sometimes) the mind of an 87-year-old.