Can't actually remember anything from that first day and for once it has nothing to do with prematurely degenerative brain cells. Something that has been a constant from that first day : I look good. My mother said it then and she says it now, "What a beautiful boy you are". Funny how a mother always sees her son as her boy, however old he is. I disagree with my mother : I look better now then that first day : I must have been all wrinkled, bloody for sure and chubby ; now not a wrinkle in sight, lean and sexy, squeaky clean. Ask anyone.

Well it's starting to sound like a big number, 45 : more than my shoe size, much less than my IQ. I don't think about it much though, getting older. Important the -er, I'm not getting OLD just getting old-er :-) But really, I don't think about it, just happy about life. About a week ago I WAS wondering in the metro if this man's temples were grey-er than mine and only a couple of days after that I considered if I looked younger than the two middle-aged men dressed stylishly at the next table, but with a nonchalant "yes" and a shrug, got back to what I was doing. Not much procrastinating to report on the subject.

I should report that today was the first time I didn't blow out all my candles!!! And there weren't even 45! I don't know what happened, I didn't want to splutter all over the cake so I positioned myself at the same level as the candles and thinned my mouth and blew but not much happened : my last breath managed to extinguish two loners, a third flickered but resisted : and that's how my nephews realized in awe that uncle Jean-Marc wasn't superman. Luckily they can still look to their fathers to impress them.