It’s a new year, and the first birthday for the blog. I haven’t been posting much lately, but now that I’m back home, you can expect to see more activity here. I also have some ideas about where I want to take the site this year, but more on that later. Watch this space!

May your 2008 be filled with success and happiness.

Yesterday, I hosted a reading of King Lear. It happened to be my birthday, so I wanted to get a cake. But since it was a King Lear reading and not a birthday party, I wanted to get a cake that would be King Lear appropriate. Here’s what I came up with:

Fortunately, my friends have a more traditional sense of birthday practice, and surprised me with a proper birthday cake:

Chocolate cake, vanilla cake, friends, and a King Lear reading: who could ask for a better birthday?

Today is Shakespeare’s birthday. I didn’t want to go to bed without acknowledging that.

And it’s the big 443. That’s a rough one. That’s when you wake up and realize you’re more than halfway to 884. And 884 is old. That’s Eleanor of Aquitane old. And then you start wondering “Yes, I’m universally considered the greatest writer in the English language. But what have I really accomplished?” And then you write a sonnet about time.

You’re not actually still reading this, are you? I’m off to bed.

I haven’t blogged much about my father because, well, it’s not really that kind of blog. But we lost him to cancer about a year and a half ago. He was 60 years old.

I think he would have enjoyed this blog. He was the type of person who was interested in engaging in many different topics, whether they were in his area or not. I guess I inherited that from him. He’d have loved this blog. And even if he didn’t, he’d have read it anyway, because it was my blog and he was proud of me.

He would have left comments, too, I’m sure, and they would have made us see things in ways we hadn’t before. He could do that. He would have signed his comments Larry instead of Dad because he wouldn’t have wanted to embarrass me. But then I’d respond and call him Dad so everyone would see what a clever father I had.

Happy Birthday, Dad. We still miss you terribly.