Birthday After

I'm 61 now, as of yesterday (a birthday I share with someone dead, someone terminally ill, a startlet--just to name the ones I know), but when my bookmark blew off my table at happy hour at Beer Bros, I still didn't know what to do. It blew through the iron railing, out onto the concrete. First it lodged under a planter then beyond.
Well, now that I'm 61 such things don't matter more than a paragraph. I was reading The Other Walk, essays by Sven Birkerts, exhibit #1 on how to approach the essay in my Expository Writing class. The set of bookmarks I have is what Coteau gave me on the occasion of My Human Comedy, 2008, which is now out of print. (If you want a free copy, just ask (me).) I thought for a minute it might be fun for someone to pick it up out there on the mall, where now it's drifted toward the alto sax busker, who's terrific.
But my newest publication would have to be Hillsdale, a Map, with Jared Carlson, which we're launching Friday, Sept. 7, 7:00, 1855 Scarth in Regina, 3rd floor. We like it, already noting several changes we'd make if the thing ever got reprinted. We printed 100, a limited.
I picked up the shipment from the printer's yesterday, the big day. I've always liked my birthday. In Kelowna last week, my innocent observation that "I didn't expect any kind of birthday fuss" was met with flat-out derision.
But let's blame it on the map, this mood of satisfaction, which would puncture instantly if the Jays manage to blow it in the 9th against Tampa.
Happy Birthday to you too, if it is.