Birthday Blues in the City of Grays

I am officially, as of last Monday, 25 years of age. I have seen 25 winters; I am officially in my late-twenties; I am one quarter of the way to Awesome, and being able to tell anyone to fuck off, because I have three digits (and they're all middle fingers); I decreed both my parents Old at 50 (they're hippies, and a little to attached to their youth. They need the reminder sometimes), so now I am halfway to Old; I've got another 10 or 15 years of potential progress in lifting heavy objects of the ground for fun, before my testosterone starts to decline and I have to be content with what I have; I will now officially start being surprised when/if people card me for booze, at least as long as I remain unshaven; in regards to emulating my idol, I am 10 years passed when Tolkien learned Welsh, but I have 19 more years until "The Monsters and the Critics", 20 more years until The Hobbit, and 31 years before Lord of the Rings; I am definitely not getting any taller, but I will certainly be getting wider, one way or another; I am probably too old to become a great musician, or a great linguist, but in writing and pedagogy I think I still have some hope left; I am passed the age of idle teenage suicide urges, but rapidly approaching the broad realm of the threatening Mid-life Crisis; the general inclinations seems to hold that I am only going to get more Hobbit-like from here on out, and any hopes of the grace of Elves or the bold courage of Men are gone; this beard is not going anywhere; I have rejected, at least in part, every philosophy I've come across, and I'm not likely to encounter ones that will surprise me; the Worst is yet to come, but in all likeliness, the Best is too.

Dear Johanna, who oh so kindly managed to both remind of my birthday and bake me a licorice-chocolate cake for it. Thereupon she ruined the occasion somewhat, as evidenced in this picture, by eating the entire cake herself. Devious.

The City is long past all thoughts of snow, but for the occasional piercing flurry of it, that seem purposed to remind us that it's still winter here for almost two more months. Lots of rain, and clouds, and gray gray gray. Sometimes I look up, walking in the mist or the downpour (on the rare occasions that you can call it a downpour) and expect, a bit Pavlovian, to see the heavy boughs of a fir hanging low and stirring in the wind. Alas, no such luck. Good fortune, walking home today, though, to see a perfectly massive raven perched on the house opposite us on Mjóstræti (they are very common here, though I always seem to miss them, or never get a particularly good view when I do see them): it was getting battered by the wind, all its feathers stirred up in every direction, looking as bedraggled and scruffy as the poets would have it, cawing out to the SE at what appeared to be nothing at all. Just bitter, maybe.

The bluebird can sing, but the crow's got the soul. . .