I'm not much for birthdays, and I don't think anything significant happens on them. I turned 40 today, but it wasn't much different from yesterday, when I was 39. Still, it's a useful enough way to mark your time on the planet.

Birthdays do get me all in a retrospective mood. It doesn't help to have a birthday on New Year's Eve, when everyone's already in deep flashback mode. So this is a long-ass, extremely self-indulgent entry looking back at my first four decades. It's my birthday so I can get away with this.

When I turned 10 I was in fifth grade and living in Shreveport, Louisiana. My best friend was named Gene.

The three things I remember about Gene:

(1) He made me sick once by coughing right in my face, as a joke. That happened in the morning, and I was in bed with a raging fever by that evening.

(2) The first time I ever had Shake & Bake pork chops and peas was at his house. To this day, this is one of my favorite things to eat.

(3) Gene's mom once asked me what denomination my family belonged to, and I told her Presbyterian, because that's what my mom told me we were. She got really excited, because they were also Presbyterian, and started asking me all these questions about which church we went to, and stuff like that. I had no idea, since we never went to church. This confounded Gene's mom. Later, I asked my mom which Presbyterian church we were supposed to be going to, and my mom was like, "What are you talking about?" Turns out we weren't actually Presbyterian. My mom just told me we were, for no particular reason.

The only other things I remember about the year I turned 10 are that I whacked a bully in the head with my metal Hot Wheels lunchbox, hard enough to completely wreck the lunchbox, and almost getting into a fistfight with a friend of mine over a factual dispute concerning an episode of Battlestar Galactica.

When I turned 20 I was in college at the U of Wisconsin, Madison. My roommate was a guy named Phil, who was working for the Dukakis campaign. He was completely obsessed with Michael Dukakis. He honestly believed Dukakis was the greatest living human being. He even had a framed drawing of Dukakis, which he had drawn himself, on his wall. After Dukakis lost the election, I made this huge collage of Dukakis photos and taped it to his door. In retrospect, I guess that was pretty insensitive.

Phil was also obsessed with C-SPAN. One time the cable went out in our apartment, and Phil sat in front of the TV with the channel turned to C-SPAN, waiting for it to come back on. He wasn't reading or doing anything else, just sitting in his chair, staring at the TV. I left to go to class, and when I came back four hours later, he was still sitting there.

There are a lot of other Phil stories, none of them very pleasant. I think it's probably fair to say that we were both one of the worst roommates each of us ever had.

When I turned 30 it was still the 20th century. I was living in San Dimas, California, and married to Sandra. We were about six months away from splitting up, but we didn't know that, yet.

I don't remember very much from that year. I wasn't very happy. I was at the height of my angstiness and existential despair. But mostly, the previous decade had been all right. Living life.

1998 was the year I discovered anime. I started renting VHS tapes of Ranma 1/2 from Hollywood Video and got hooked. When that source tapped out, I found a little comic book store in nearby Claremont that rented a whole bunch of anime titles, and that became a weekly thing. It's kind of quaint now, this notion of hunting down VHS tapes of stuff in person instead of just searching online. So analog! That comic book store probably isn't there anymore.

My 30s were pretty action-packed compared to the previous decades. Moved to Seattle, got in on the dot-com boom, became a B-list Internet personality. Got fucked up by the 2000 election and then 9/11 changed everything. Hearts were broken. Weird areas of my psyche explored. Got fucked up by the 2004 election and then Hannah changed everything. Marriage. My dad died. Dry cleaning: worst job ever. Vegas. And now Albuquerque...and beyond!

So now, heading into my 40s. I'm feeling good. I'm in a good place. I'm mentally healthier than I was ten years ago. I feel more together and less confused about things that confused me at 30.

There are disappointments. I haven't accomplished the things I hoped to during this decade. There's a burned-out place in my mind and heart that isn't going to magically spring back to life anytime soon. I'm still afraid of death. I'm still afraid of the years going by faster and faster and that I'm not making good use of them.

The thing about 40, I guess it feels like I've just about reached the end of Part One. I'm starting to feel like a grown-up now. Which I never did, throughout almost all of my 30s. And I don't believe in clean lines of division in life, so I don't think there will be all these magical changes now that I'm 40. It's a steady, ongoing process of growing, revising, refining, and figuring stuff out.

I've been alive for four decades now, and if I'm fortunate, I'll be around for another four decades. Boy, life is short, but it's also long. Everything I've done and lived through for forty years, I have the opportunity to do that much more living. That's a pretty exciting thought. What's going to happen? What's the next year, and the next decade, going to bring? You don't know. I don't know. Nobody knows!

Woo hoo!

Hey kids! As promised, here is my Guide to Avoiding and/or Dealing With the Dreaded Common Cold, Version 2008. This is a work in progress, but represents everything I have learned in my many years of fighting the cold bug.

1. Nothing in this guide will guarantee that you will not catch a cold. In fact, thinking that you are immune from a cold will almost certainly assure that you will catch a cold.

I've read more than one blog post by someone gloating that they've avoided getting sick because of their anti-infection methods, and they're always followed a couple of posts later by an account of the blogger getting the worst cold of his/her life.

The fact is, if you're exposed to cold germs, you will get infected. There is no such thing as immunity. All you can do is limit your chances of being exposed, and/or minimize the suffering you experience from your cold. Using the methods outlined below, I've caught several colds over the past year, but gotten over them with a few mild symptoms.

2. Obviously, the best way to get through cold season is to not get exposed to cold germs in the first place. Most people know to be wary of germs from things like doorknobs and shopping cart handles. Personally, I carry a bottle of hand sanitizer with me everywhere, but I don't use it obsessively. The danger from germy hands is touching your mouth, nose, or EYES (a germ entry point many people forget about), or touching something (like food) that will touch your mouth. So I will use the sanitizer when I'm going to do one of those things, and I try to be careful not to touch my nose with un-sanitized hands.

If you're flying, remember the basic germ-avoidance tips for airplanes. DON'T EVER GET A DRINK WITH AIRPLANE ICE, WHICH IS FILTHY. Sanitize your hands after touching things like seat belt buckles and armrests. As for the air nozzle, I don't believe the notion that they circulate germs through the cabin, but I do think they can dry out your mucous membranes, which makes you more vulnerable to cold germs, so I always point the nozzle so it's not blowing directly on me.

3. Certain places should be absolutely avoided during cold seasons. If you can't avoid going somewhere like a buffet, where you have multiple strangers' hands touching stuff that you're touching (and then eating food with those hands), or any public place frequented by kids, you may as well resign yourself to catching a cold eventually.

Nobody knows exactly how long cold/flu germs stay alive on contaminated surfaces, but it can range from a few minutes to 48 hours. So there are sneaky things that you might not realize are harboring germs -- like salt/pepper shakers at restaurants -- that you should be careful around.

When you go to restrooms, be aware that germs are not only on the doorknob (open doors with a paper towel), but on the faucet handles as well.

4. Probably the best pre-cold strategy is to build up your immune system. You won't "fight off" a cold, but you can minimize its impact. The best thing for your immune system is eating foods that don't tax your body's resources. This means lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, minimally processed and preferably uncooked. Try to minimize meat and sugars and other foods that your body spends a lot of energy digesting. Raw food advocates believe cooking food produces toxins, and eating a mostly cooked diet taxes your immune system, making you more susceptible to colds. That's a controversial, debatable assertion, but my personal, unscientific experience has convinced me that it's probably true.

5. The whole basis of my cold-fighting strategy is that MUCUS IS THE ENEMY. Mucus is what carries the cold germs and other substances produced by your infection throughout your body. The best way to minimize cold symptoms is to keep flushing that infected mucus out of your sinuses. Which brings me to your best friend during a cold....

6. NeilMed Sinus Rinse. This is a soothing sinus wash, using premixed saline packets that you mix with water in the Sinus Rinse bottle and then shoot up your nostrils. If you've never used this product before (it's similar to the neti pot, but a little more aggressive since you use a squeeze bottle to shoot the solution up into your sinus cavities...I'm not gonna get into a debate over which is best, but the squeeze bottle works best for me), it's a little weird and scary at first, but the feeling of cleaned out sinuses is more than worth it. After a while it becomes really easy.

7. Infected mucus is what causes your sore throat (due to irritating substances in the mucus) and the upper respiratory irritation that causes coughing. If it gets into your lungs, that's when you fall into the death spiral where your coughing (to expel the mucus) makes your sore throat worse. That's why it's so vital to control that mucus.

It's especially important to avoid mucus-producing foods (actually, pretty much all foods are mucus-producing, but some are worse than others), such as dairy, citrus (yeah, avoid the orange juice), bananas, and wheat-based foods like bread and pasta. I also find coffee to be mucus-producing, but your mileage may vary on that one.

Onions and garlic are good foods to eat when you have a cold, because not only do they have germ-fighting properties, but they tend to thin the mucus.

8. So, at the first sign of a cold, hit the sinus rinse. Hard. Try to rinse at least 2-3 times per day. You want to minimize post-nasal drip. That is the objective.

9. I use three medications when I have a cold. One is some kind of fever reducer, like Advil or Aleve. The others are Mucinex, which is a cough suppressant and expectorant, and Sudafed (not the wimpified version, but the real stuff with pseudoephedrine). The key here is to use them strategically and minimally.

I like Mucinex because it thins the mucus, which makes it easier to cough up and get rid of, and also keeps it from sticking to your membranes, and suppresses your cough, which helps keep you from getting a sore throat. I usually only take the Mucinex -- if my cold gets that far -- later in the cold cycle, after the initial stages (for me, it's a specific point when the stuffy nose gets better but the cough starts getting worse).

I use Sudafed VERY sparingly. Usually just during the worst couple of days, and only at night, a couple of hours before bed. For me, the worst thing about a cold is not being able to sleep because of a stuffy nose, so it's worth the possible side effects to just go ahead and nuke my sinuses when I'm trying to get to sleep.

10. That's pretty much it. Again, the sinus rinse is the key. I've had colds that didn't last more than a day, and I truly believe it's because the sinus rinse flushed out most of the infected mucus before it could get a foothold.

I hope this doesn't come too late for you! A lot of this is common sense, but I hope there's something here that can be useful for your own cold-fighting methods.

We're about to open presents for the pets, and then it's over to Hannah's family's house for more presents opening and a family tradition called "Special Coffee," which involves coffee doctored with a variety of brown liquors and topped with whipped cream. Then: long nap.

The Christmas sales storm wound down just in time for me to get sick. I've been pretty lucky this year, sickness-wise, but it was bound to happen eventually. The Ephialtes that betrayed my redoubtable Spartan anti-disease wall was my dust allergy. Last week I organized the inventory/mailing room without wearing a dust mask, which was really, really stupid, because you can't so much as pull a book off the shelf in there without turning the room into a frickin' snow globe. So I think the allergy wore down my immune system and let in the barbarian hordes. Crap, I just mixed up my classical metaphors.

Anyway, I had a whole plan of action on dealing with my cold that I'll write about later, because I think it was pretty effective, and I know that's what you come here for, is my formidable medical expertise.

Tonight, Hannah and I are going to visit Hannah's (step-)grandparents for their annual Christmas Eve party. I like the grandparents quite a bit -- they made me feel very welcome and part of the family, the first time I met them.

Still, I always feel kind of nervous when I'm at their house, mostly because their home is filled with all kinds of incredibly valuable antiques, and I'm totally the type of Gilliganesque klutz who bumps his ass into tables while reaching down for some extremely staining piece of food I just dropped onto the immaculate carpet.

Also, the grandparents and I are all hard of hearing, so that makes for some interesting conversations, that sound kind of like a Samuel Beckett play directed by David Mamet.

That's all for now. Merry Christmas!

Friday capped off a satisfying week of sales, and occasioned an evening of good food and delicious, nutritious martinis gibsons. For dinner we had what I have come to think of as the Byun Family Smorgasbord, which consists of olives, nuts, some type of cheese, a cured meat (usually pepperoni, but sometimes salami), hot bread, butter, and a big platter of roasted vegetables.

I changed my pitch a little tonight by introducing a dish of sliced onions in vinegar, which I've only ever encountered as a kind of relish to accompany a bowl of Chajang Myun, or Black Bean Noodles, which, if you've never tried it, don't even pretend to be a living human being. I thought the onions and vinegar would go well with the salami, and it actually did. The astringent acidity of the onions soaked in vinegar tends to balance out oily or unctuous foods. It sounds kinda horrifying but I think I converted Hannah.

Thinking about Chajang Myun made me want some. Bad. Unfortunately it can be hard to find. You can often get it in Chinese restaurants, even though it's not on the menu. Your best bet is Korean-owned Chinese restaurants. I'm hoping to find one of those here in Albuquerque.

My five favorite Korean dishes:

1. Kalbi

2. Naeng Myun

3. Chajang Myun

4. Japchae

5. Ojingo Bokum

If I were on Death Row, that's what I'd want, is a big plate of each of those things. Holy Cow.

I just fell asleep while writing this. I guess I'd better get to bed.

My plan of regular posting has fallen to a hoped-for but still kind of startling rush of Christmas and textbook sales. I don't have another year to compare this season to, but my theory is that purveyors of used things are going to be OK through these economic hard times, because people are less likely to buy stuff brand new when vastly cheaper, perfectly good used stuff is available. We'll see.

We're expecting the next couple of months to be good ones. There's Christmas, and then it's textbook season as the new semesters/quarters start up around the country. The fall textbook season was terrific, so I have high hopes.

After all the craziness of starting this up, and working out the bugs in the process, I've been hoping for the business to settle down into a regular routine. But I'm starting to realize that there aren't going to be any "regular" months in this trade. Every month is different. Figuring out a budget with this kind of income is problematic, because there's no steady paycheck, and no way to set a reliable average. Although it's highly unlikely, it's technically possible to sell nothing in a month.

So you've got to set conservative estimates, and never count on a good month because you never know. And when you do have a good month, you've got to sock away all those acorns, or you might be hungry next month.

That's never been me. I'm a grasshopper, not an ant. My tendency is to spend freely during feast times and pinch and scrape through the famine times. I don't have much experience with saving money or moderate thrift. I'm either dumpster diving or going on Ikea shopping sprees.

I'm trying to change that. I'm trying to become more ant-like. Save during the busy times so you don't starve when things get slow. I actually spent a hefty chunk of yesterday setting up super-elaborate budget and expense spreadsheets to help keep finances under control. If you know me at all, this should be pretty shocking. I am not someone who does this. I had to learn how to use a spreadsheet program. It wasn't pretty.

Figuring out our budget, the really astounding thing is the percentage of our income that's left over after expenses. I mean, it's a modest amount of money, but given how close to broke we are all the time, it's an amount that shouldn't actually exist. It's like that exercise where you add up exactly how much time you spend on your daily activities, and see all the free time you have left over. We waste so much time and money that we don't really enjoy because we barely feel it passing.

I think mainly I want our finances to be under control so I can focus on other stuff. H and I live a pretty pared-down life. No mortgage or car payments. So it shouldn't be that hard to keep on top of things. I've resisted budgeting in the past because it felt oppressive to have to keep track of every penny all the time, but I'm starting to realize now how oppressive it is to not be sure what's going on, and how much anxiety and mental work I can save myself by making sure finances are in order so I can focus completely on things I want to think about. That's a kind of freedom I can get on board with.

Here's what the cool kids will be into in the coming year. Don't let the hipmobile pass you by! Get in on these trends early.

This is a story I wrote six years ago, during an evening of quiet reflection. I've received several requests for a reprint over the years, but it was lost in one of my many moves between weblogs and websites, and it wasn't in any of my archives, so I figured it was just gone.

This morning I did some digging around at the Wayback Machine, and amazingly enough, there it was!

So, without further ado, one of the most finest things I have ever committed to print. Keep a box of Kleenex close by as you read this, because the incredibly special drama and poignancy of this narrative will have you weeping rock 'n' roll tears.

Steve walked into the darkened bedroom. Sue-Lynn was already asleep, her long blonde hair splayed across both of their pillows. He knelt beside her and leaned in to plant a soft kiss on the back of her neck. Sue-Lynn moaned softly and rolled over. She opened her eyes and smiled. Wordlessly, she lifted herself up from the bed and kissed Steve, her lips dry but soft against Steve's own.

"Roses never fade...."

Steve awoke with a start, Sue-Lynn's name still on his lips. He instinctively felt around himself on the bed. He was alone.

He sighed deeply and reached for the bottle of Perrier on the bedstand. He had dreamed about her again.

Steve flicked on a light and glanced around at his luxuriously, if anonymously, appointed hotel suite. It was always the same room, it seemed; the same hotel. The cities changed but the hotels never did. Looking at the beige walls, he felt a twinge of intense loneliness twist through his stomach.

Should he head downstairs? There would be groupies waiting in the lobby, even at this late hour, hoping for a glimpse of their idol -- or more than a glimpse.

No...not tonight. Steve stood up and stretched his limbs, still a bit achy from the previous night's show. He padded to the window, his feet sinking into the deep plush carpeting, and looked out at the night skyline of Los Angeles.

Lemoore was only a few hours' drive from here, Steve thought. He wondered if Sue-Lynn still lived there. A couple of years ago he'd run into a mutual friend, who'd told him she was still in Lemoore, living with her mother.

Broken hearts can always mend, he had told her, the day he had dropped the bomb. But did they? He wasn't so sure anymore. His own heart was still ticking away, to be sure, but it hadn't been the same since Sue-Lynn.

Roses never fade...

Steve turned from the window and went to the bedstand. He picked up the phone and called for his car.

Four hours later, as the sun rose above the coastal mountains, he found himself driving past Lemoore's city limits.

Lemoore hadn't changed much since his last visit, years ago. Towns like Lemoore never changed much. A Target or Starbucks might find its way into what passed for Lemoore's downtown district, but things mostly stayed the same. Without being quite aware of it, Steve drove down the main drag, toward the apartment he'd shared with Sue-Lynn.

He'd ridden out of town in a rusted-out Harley, and was driving back in a silver Porsche. Things in Lemoore may not change much, Steve mused, but things from Lemoore sure changed a lot once they left.

Steve looked up at his old apartment building, a two-story that had been crumbling even when he'd lived in it. He knew Sue-Lynn wouldn't be there, but he wanted to see it anyway.

Around the corner from the apartment was the Lemoore Cafe, where he and Sue-Lynn had gone on weekends, if one of them had been working and had some extra cash. Steve wondered if it was still there.

It was, but it had closed down along with all the other shops on the block, quite a while ago it seemed, judging from the advanced state of decay. He wondered if he and Sue-Lynn had been the cafe's last customers, the day he'd left town.

"Come with me," he said.

Sue-Lynn smiled; it was the saddest thing Steve had ever seen. "Whatever you say, Stevie," she said finally, but there was neither hope nor expectation in her voice.

Steve walked up the street from the cafe. It was funny how the old neighborhood hadn't changed, yet it still felt unfamiliar to him. He couldn't remember now how to get to the post office or the grocery store, though if he'd been blindfolded he could probably find his way there by instinct alone.

He passed by a flower shop and thought of roses. He ducked inside. The owner turned out to be a girl he'd gone to high school with, Katey Hamilton. She of course recognized him at once, and they greeted each other warmly.

After a few minutes of catching up, Steve asked if Katey knew where Sue-Lynn was. He hoped he had done so with enough nonchalance.

Katey's eyebrow lifted enigmatically. "Why?" she asked. "Are you thinking of looking her up?"

"Should I not?" Steve said.

Katey was silent for a moment. Then she said, "Sue-Lynn's married now, did you know that?"

"No, I didn't."

"Yeah. She ended up with Kyle Morrison, if you can believe that. Remember old Kyle?"

He did remember Kyle. Kyle had been a jock in high school, a football player. He and Steve hadn't had much to do with each other, since Steve had no interest in sports and wasn't runty or nerdy enough to become a receptacle for excess jock aggression. He'd figured Kyle would have gotten out of Lemoore on a scholarship or something.

"Well...that's great," he said lamely.

"Yeah, I guess," Katey said.

"Hey," Steve said abruptly, "is Sue-Lynn okay? I mean, is she happy?"

Katey smiled, her expression unreadable. "Yeah, Steve," she said, "she's doing fine."

They stood at the door of the Lemoore Cafe and kissed their farewells. Her tears rolled down onto Steve's cheeks and left pink marks where they'd touched his skin.

He swung onto his motorcycle and rode away, feeling her gaze piercing his back all the way to Los Angeles.

"You okay, Steve?"

Katey's voice brought him out of his reverie. He smiled at her, or hoped he did. "Yeah....I'm okay."

Steve pulled his wallet out of his hip pocket. "Listen, Katey," he said, "I want to order some roses."

"Okay."

"Give her the best in the shop, okay?" Steve said.

"You know I will. Do you want to include a card?"

Steve hesitated a moment, thinking. "No," he said finally. "Just...send her my love, okay?"

As Steve drove out of Lemoore, back to Los Angeles, his fingers sought out the place on his shoulder where his tattoo still lay.

Roses never fade....

He was just over the hills into the L.A. basin when the tears finally dried from his cheeks.

A priest, a rabbi, and a financial adviser walk into a supermarket. Pooling their money, they are able to buy two pounds of conventionally grown tomatoes and a pack of gum.

Q: How many Scientologists does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: I've just been laid off from my job.

A man goes to his doctor. He says, "Doc, I got this pain in my left leg that won't go away."

The doctor says, "Uninsured patients ineligible for Medicaid must pay in advance by check, credit card, or an installment plan to be negotiated before treatment."

A duck walks into a bar. It is immediately set upon and devoured by a ravenous mob unable to afford the skyrocketing cost of food in our fossil fuel-based food production and distribution system.

A man is dining in a restaurant and discovers a dead fly floating in his soup. Calling over a waiter, he says, "Waiter, there's a fly in my soup!"

The waiter replies, "If the most you have to worry about at a time like this is a fly in your soup, you are a lucky man indeed."

Chastened, the man says, "Yeah...I guess you're right. God knows I am fortunate to have a steady paycheck and health insurance and can go home to a house that is paid for."

The waiter says, "Let us pray that these difficult times pass quickly, and that the incoming presidential administration is able to remedy the crisis facing our nation's economy."