Eric's birthday is tomorrow. We celebrated it yesterday. So I'll write about it today, I guess.

I described how I feel about my nephew on his birthday last year, and he figures prominently on the bio page, but I never get tired of telling everyone what a cool guy he is. When he came into the world 25 years ago, my life changed forever. He's grown into a good man who has been able to get what he wants out of life without stepping over anyone else. He makes friends wherever he goes, and the world is a more gracious and congenial place when he's around.

We all got together at his parents' house yesterday for a typical leisurely family dinner. (Leisurely for those of us who didn't do any of the work, that is.) Since he moved to Martinez, we don't see him as often as we'd like. And David is always busy, so I don't see enough of him, either, even though he lives at home. We talked, we ate, we had a little wine. It was a good day, and a worthy occasion.

He liked the dashboard Buddy Christ (from Dogma) I gave him (I got the idea from Rob, of course). And since he'll be in Las Vegas next weekend (Eric, not Rob, and certainly not BC), he gave me my birthday present early (The Matrix on DVD).

This time-shifting stuff isn't for me. I hate getting out of bed every morning, and today wasn't actually much worse than usual. It just isn't what I do best. I had a hard time dragging my body around, and I have to say that not much work got done. The nine baseball games (and one basketball game) on TV didn't help, but it was mostly just the fact that my eyes were at half mast and my brain didn't know what time it was.

The weather turned almost wintry, too. It was cloudy and windy and much cooler than it has been, and I could feel it in my head and throat.

I guess I have to admit that I don't react well to changes. The time and weather are beyond my control, but when I have a choice between moving and standing still, I'll choose stagnation most of the time. This natural vegetative state is a condition I've fought against, with some success.

It used to be that I rarely accepted invitations to do anything new. Now I've conditioned myself to say yes to new things, although the chance doesn't come up often. Since I don't like to go to new places alone, I'm always grateful when I get invited to go somewhere I've been curious about.

Today, though, was one of those days when I was happy and relieved to work at home (not that I "worked" much, but at least I didn't have to go anywhere or talk to anyone in my degraded condition). I was tired and irritable all day. I took offense at the cows roaming the field next door, and I chattered back crossly at the blue jays. Imagine how I would have responded if there had been people around to get on my last frayed nerve.