On the eve of my hubbadobubbaboblah birthday: tucked my son into Pre-K, FB’d (i.e. avoided yoga), did yoga, even Superman, even V-ups, edited poems, sighed at the unicycle, edited poems, zoomed the boy to karate testing for his green stripe belt, watched him succeed, fixed dinner, threw the ball for the dog and spent the rest of the evening building a Lego Chima thing with kick-ass wheels, to my son’s shrieked delight, Pandora on the iphone shuffling out Elbow after Coldplay after those many other boy bands that sound just like the previously mentioned, after Elbow and more Elbow. I’m tired, Mama, my son said. It was 8:30p.m. Where the bluebird did the time go? I quickly brought about bedtime, read stories, tucked him in and here I recline, the dog snoring next to me, and I am, of course, wondering how it is I can be having another birthday when the last one was yesterday. Or, truthfully?: seconds ago.

TIME never ceases to baffle and amaze, which means there’s something superbly wrong with me as TIME is so easy to comprehend, like hulu or Joan Collins’ sister’s novels or yellow blossoms twitching in a breeze. TIME. WTH? When you’re 90 you’ll back and say, why in the name of Frodo and sardines dipped in pepper cheddar cheese fondue didn’t I just enjoy my hubbabdubsnrrrg birthday? suggests my husband. The same thing he’s said every birthday since I’ve known him. Meaning 8 years, which, when you think about it, is not very long—8 years of knowing each other, married for 6, raising our boy for 5? A BLINK! It’s crazy. You know it is. TIME is: the Sherlock and the hemlock and the white sunburst always out there and the seashell’s muddled whisper and the rock in the rain and pink ice cream on the tongue and fingers working aging keys, revising. I’ll never get used to TIME. Perhaps I should sell T-shirts in the manner of those that read: FREE BATES. A red cirle, and inside: TIME, and a red line slashing through. NO TIME. Or, you know, a Jonathan L Seagull flying (on the T-shirt), TIME in delicate script font beneath. And a slashing red line. Or a mouth open uber-wide, the word TIME shoved down it. And a slashing red line. TIME TIME TIME TIME TIME TIME TIME. Etc. Look, my husband insists, TIME is in the living, the living is inside every minute. Just enjoy your dang birthday, PB.

Waking up to birthday cake for breakfast and a laundry basket full of presents, a supremely optimistic husband and excited little boy?: helps.

Unicycle thus far. 9 seconds…