I turned thirty-eight today. That's the sum of the squares of the first three primes (thank you for that useless fact, Wikipedia). That's also eight more than thirty, and two less than a psychological crisis followed by a Harley-Davidson, possibly followed by either a sale or a divorce. A friend turned forty this year and needed a forthnight off work to cope with it. My sore back and worrying head says that won't do it for me.

Did you know that cats have 38 chromosomes in their genome? Okay I'll close that tab now. On my previous birthday, I bought myself a board game and wrote:

If there's one thing I wish for my thirty-eight birthday, it's having played Grand Austria Hotel at least 20 times. Nineteen more to go!

Guess how many times I played that game? Exactly four times. Perhaps now it's time to start thinking about introducing a regular game night, otherwise those projected "20 times" will never become a reality.

As you get older, traditional wrapped gifts seem to gradually make way for financial transfers, sometimes a few days before your "special" day. And I get it: like I wrote before, we have too many stuff---what kind of original thing can you still gift, then? Still, a part of me mourns this loss. I think that's why birthdays were much more fun when I was a kid: unwrapping that exciting new LEGO set and getting to play with it all day, only to take a break for dinner that you got to choose. Now I have to cook (or order) it myself.

My grandfather kept on buying LEGO sets for himself and played with it now and then when I visited. Perhaps even more when I wasn't there. Perhaps he even wrapped them just for the heck of it. I should learn from that. I think I'm getting too serious. For us, the year 2023 has been too serious. When I asked what's your take on life? on Mastodon, Tijn of the DOS Game Club answered simply with "try to have fun".

Perhaps I should remember this day to be a bit more playful, and not limit that state of mind just to playing games.