So I turned 41 two days ago. And it probably says a lot about the state of mind that I find myself in these days that this year's present of choice was, you guessed it, Lego.
Two very cool kits made it into my collection: the fun-to-build and adaptable Creator Log Cabin, with three different designs of varying degrees of difficulty and a whole host of blocks, plates, roof slopes and basic elements that make me itchy to play about with architectural designs. And with $50 from my father and stepmother, I stepped out to the shops and came home with the mad-as-a-mad-thing Space Truck Getaway set from the Space Police III series, a bunch of sets I love for their insane space-punk look, plethora of speciality parts, and alien minifigs that were obviously the result of the designers getting a little too smashed at a Friday sundowner one week and seeing what they could get past the bosses.
They're also all but off the shelves in my lonely corner of the world. I got lucky with this one because I managed to find it tucked down in between shelving units at my local Toyworld, where it had obviously been knocked off, slipped down, and become both stuck and forgotten over time. That, my friends, is what we call a score :)
Then out of nowhere, Luscious Lyn's best friend Catherine came over to attend the Nanowrimo Night of Writing Dangerously event I had organised for last night, and presented me with the enormous Alien Invasion Mothership, with another bucketful of fun specialty parts including the much-wanted by Connor Lime Clinger, so it was happy building time all round!
My darling, naturally, both went against the general theme and provided me with the most individually desired gift. It's our little ritual to provide each other with a book, and The Monster's Corner is one that prompted instant lust when stumbled upon in a bookshop recently: how could you not want it once you spy that cover?
Straight to the top of my reading pile, baby! :))
41 isn't any different to 40, of course, and a birthday really isn't any different to any other day of the week, especially if you don't get the day off work to laze about and pretend you're King of the House. But this year it's been an indicator, and high watermark, of big changes in my way of life. In the weeks leading up to it I've entered into a quantum change in writing direction, engaging an agent and pretty much completing the switch from short story writer to novelist; I've embarked on a series of projects that will lead me into a new sphere of professional work; and I've re-engaged with a childhood pleasure that's given me an outlet that I can pursue purely for fun's sake-- writing might be my major outlet, and it might be fun, but it's been several years since I've approached any writing with 'just fun' in mind. I'm a writer. I sell what I write. It's always a business.-- I joke about my sudden Lego addiction, and my family jokes with me, but their willingness to indulge me and gift me with sets and time to piggle about with them show they understand the pleasure I'm deriving from it.
My family made my birthday special, as they always do, but it's the acceptance and indulgence they afford me that keeps me smiling.
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