A year prior to my acquaintance with E, I had fallen in love with a girl whom I will refer to as J. She was a goddess and the first woman in our school to develop breasts–the primary source of my friends’ envy when I eventually began dating her.

The promos for In The Heights make The Partridge Family look like Black Sabbath.

Some things don’t change. We are creatures of habit. But we’re also creatures of evolution, and while basking in the happiness that familiarity brings, we also find ourselves on our birthdays with a heart and a brain full of things learned. So, taking my inspiration from a Don Hall tradition of recounting those things leaned in the past year, here’s the short list of what my forty-first trip around the Sun has revealed to me.

I am limping proof that hopes, prayers, and positive thinking are no match for reality and action.

I admit that I’ll be disappointed if my son grows up to be a cop.

Phrases like “not to mention” and “ who needs no introduction” written or said leading into an introduction are completely false statements and make no sense in any context they’re used. They should be removed from our language patterns completely. It goes without saying that these phrases and others should not be used ever again.

I’m not nostalgic for the place but I feel that tug of melancholy leaving behind the memories. Yet the best part about memories is that, at least until I get that delicious dementia, they come with me.