-- Thursday, February 3, 2000 --

12:26 a.m. But it feels much later.

1:10 a.m. Now it actually is much later. That was a false start. This is a true one. Ok. I'm coming clean -- I'm now in my birthday twenty-four. The 24 hours that seem like a national celebration of my birth. As if the whole world knows that today is a special day. Well, not the "today" of this entry, but the real "today" right now.

For the years when there's not enough money to buy each other any presents, Igor and I have devised a panacea. For the entire day, the person celebrating is allowed to be entirely selfish. All the normal rules of marital survival are turned off and for twenty four hours, there is no compromise, no sharing, no discussion. I get to choose.

For Igor's birthday, I try very hard not to criticize him -- not in jest, not in sport, not in constructive for-your-own-good. I am amazed at how many sentences I have to abort or spin around on their axis before they leave my lips. I am a harridan.

The chair in the picture is from the same yard with the machine of joyful noise from yesterday. And here's something cool: remember the picture from two days ago -- the big pink rose on the side of the building? Well guess what! Just today, while I was slaving over a hot printer, Vice President Gore was in that very shop, that very restaurant, meeting and greeting the local constituents.

The place is called the Rose Cafe, and it's an interesting place for a photo op, let me tell you. Since my camera was acting up, I took a shot of the outside and then realized I was out of space on the digi card once I got inside. If I'd had a working camera, I would have photographed the fragile rows of shelves for your added delight.

The place has a big deli glass-case counter and then a bunch of stools and tall cafe-type tables for perching with your purchases and gnawing on your pita pockets. Meanwhile, a whole other half of the store is a stock-standard cliché female delight, full of tippy parchment hanging stars and spun glass frogs and stacks of exquisite delicate silvery things that cost a fortune and make you wish you had unlimited dough.

And if you move a half-inch the wrong way, you're sure to knock something on spindly legs right over into something else that was hand blown or hand thrown. Incense and twinkly things strung together on just-right raffia ribbons. I tried to get a shot of a Valentine display of glass lace doilies, but I couldn't get back far enough to frame the shot without jeopardizing my entire month's food budget with my elbows.

And yet, into that small tight space was the entire traveling campaign -- bandwagon, cameras, fuzzy boom mikes and maybe even a woman named Tipper. In a china shop. It must have been something to see.

Yeah, so as of right now, I'm officially 53. And what's it feel like to have gotten this far? Well, take another look at that chair in the photo. I couldn't say it any better than that. (But I will try.)

It's a transplanted chair, now basking in the sun of February. There's a bit of veneer lost and the shine is gone, permanently. A leg is broken and missing ... and yet, necessity has created something more interesting than perfection. There's weight on this chair. And the passage of time is being noted, right there on the seat.

When you no longer have to sit on a chair, you can finally, truly see the chair.

Maybe that's the point of aging. Necessary creativity.