Here’s my birth certificate from just about 57 years ago today. I wonder what it was like for my parents to look at me, hold me, feel about me as I lie in that crib at Saint John’s Hospital in Santa Monica back in the summer of 1963. Because of how things developed, it’s hard to imagine that they felt remotely as euphorically happy about my arrival as Charlotte and I did when our daughter Elle was born. But somehow I know they did. You can’t help but feel joy when your child is born. It’s such an amazing happening. A miracle, for lack of a less religious way to describe it.

When I think of the number fifty-seven, I can both relate to that in 13 years, I’ll be 70 and that I have a long way to go if I make it to my 100th birthday, like my friend Fred Nicholas did the other month. I have my doubts about reaching that auspicious age, though. Too many past sins…some of which are bound to catch up with me. Rationally, speaking.

Lisa, one of my oldest friends from back in LA, just pointed out that I should celebrate my triumphs today and not despair or dwell on bad shit. Everyone goes through bad shit. Bad shit is part of the human experience. Without the bad shit, how would you or could you enjoy the good shit? There has to be a balance, of course. An equilibrium between the good and the bad shit. And with the obvious exception of my first decade and a half on this wonderful blue planet, I definitely consider most of my life thus far to have been really, really good. Enviable, even. However, I do continue to yearn for some things; to be truer to myself, think less of other’s opinions, take more risks, embrace more challenges. Evolve creatively. Practice Qigong more. Drink less. Eat less with my mouth and more with my brain.

After a Champagne breakfast in bed, as per our family’s tradition, Charlotte and her co-conspirator, the mini dachshund Lennart, have a few birthday surprises in store for me today. Later, towards the evening, a couple of old friends are going to drop by and join us for dinner. That’s it. So now I’m 57. Weird.