34 Years Old

Looks like I have some catching up to do. I went out to Pete's birthday party on Saturday night - well, he calls it a "re-birthday," since his real birthday was back in January and this was simply the first chance we've had to celebrate. A dozen or so of us gathered at Hokkaido on 124th street. The food was good - I ordered teriyaki chicken - but I still fail to see the appeal of tempura. Thick, greasy yellow batter surrounding a tiny bit of shrimp or (gak) eggplant or yam. No thanks. Sushi kind of escapes me, too. I have a timid palate.

I caught up on some movies over the weekend...finally saw Sunset Blvd. To me, it's a bizarre mix of Gothic and noir elements, with some old-fashioned melodrama tossed in for good measure. Great film, particularly the opening sequence.

I also watched Undercover Brother, a far less accomplished film, but it was sincere, and had many moments of genuine hilarity. Oh, and my X-Men 1.5 DVD came with a free pass to see Daredevil, so I went to see that, too. Not bad; certainly better than I was expecting.

Hmm - it's February 25th, and now that it's after 7:37 PM, I guess it's my birthday. My 34th birthday, to be precise.

When I was five or six, I saw the Star Trek episode "The Deadly Years" for the first time. In the episode, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy start to age at an accellerated rate, growing old and decrepit before our very eyes. Naturally, Kirk's advancing senility calls his ability to command the Enterprise into question, so the senior crew members call a hearing. An emotional Kirk cries out at one point, in defiance of his condition: "I...am...thirty-four...years...old!"

When I watched that episode for the first time, on the CBC up in the tiny northern town of Leaf Rapids, I thought to myself, "One day, I'll be thirty-four, just like Captain Kirk."

That day has come. Captain Kirk isn't thirty-four anymore, of course, except for the 52 minutes of time preserved in "The Deadly Years." Captain Kirk died on a mountaintop a few years ago - or a few centuries from now, depending on how you count these things.

From a very early age, I've always been keenly aware of my own mortality. Maybe that's why I've always been an atheist. The great void waits for each of us, lacking even darkness, for even that would be something...a presence defined by an absence.

Pretentious enough for one evening? Lighter news tomorrow.