People have asked me how long I can conceivably go crashing on friend's couches as my friends get older and acquire families. What I discovered during the trip to New York is that my accommodations have actually gotten much better. Friends have houses now, and apartments that have extra bedrooms, or just really nice singles. No more crashing in mini apartments with acquaintance roommates and cramped spaces. One friend even gave me her bed, made up with fresh new white sheets, even though I insisted that I was very happy on the floor. Yes, as I've gotten older, I'm made the transition from "couch crasher" to "guest."

The next step is to visit cities and be able to afford hotels and stuff like that. That's truly the adult thing to do. In the past, the only reason anybody's ever rented a room is because they had a significant other accompanying them. Now people figure a couple of hundred dollars is worth the non-host hassle and I can see their point. Although I doubt I'd ever want to rent versus harass my friends. Thanks friends.

I might lose a tooth. Not from stress or anything. That would at least be a good reason. Instead my reason was that a little cyst developed two weeks ago above my left incisor. Painless, unobtrusive, nothing particularly harmful or dangerous about it. Or so I thought. Instead of the check up and quick puncture I was expecting, I walked out six shots of local anesthetic later, mouth throbbing from dental surgery. They cut way deep into my gums and cleaned around the tooth. It was a bloody mess. And I watched the whole thing by holding up a hand mirror. Ugh. It turns out that the bone around my crown/root had disappeared and there's a good chance the tooth won't be able to heal or something like that. We'll see in three weeks. Keep your fingers crossed for me. It's times like that, stuck in the dentist chair, when I realize how lucky I am to never really be bothered by physical pain or sickness. I guess all that good health karma upends itself when it comes to my teeth.

I have some plans to eat healthier, consume less candy, and to slow down on the coffee and cigarettes. After my first draft of the next book is over, I'm going to start figuring out what leads to my constant ups and downs in energy. Is it as simple as "I'm a night person?" Does my energy only rise as the sun sets? (My current theory) Or does my consistent inconsistent intake of one meal a day, candy at will, coffee whenever I'm awake, and all the weird eating habits I've acquired through the years actually make a difference?

It would be nice to believe that my body is just some sort of fantastic machine where I throw crap in and good things come out. But lately I've started to come around to the idea that maybe my post-thirty body isn't quite as resistant as before. Or maybe I'm only a fast healer because I can afford to sleep twelve hours a day. Some experiments and trial-and-error are in order. As soon as I'm back from the East Coast.

When they say, "It's all downhill from here," they ain't kidding.