Happy Birthday to Moi!

Monday 12:40 p.m.
It's my birthday today. I'm now fifty nine years old. It is also the birthday of this bloggy stuff. It is five years old, I think.

For the first couple of years I was looking for a literary agent. Then I found one. Hurrah! Rich, I tell you! Riches beyond your wildest dreams.

The literary agent was very good indeed. He took two of my books to the Frankfort and London book fairs, something I'd always looked forward to. But he didn't sell them. Boo! Boo! Boo!

My assumption was that if you had a literary agent, you would get books published, but I know better now. This was bugger all to do with the agent. All an agent can do is get your stuff in front of editors and he did that, and the editors told him to fung off! C'est la vie.

There was a bit of excitement recently when it looked as if a publisher wanted to publish one of my books, and he still wants to publish it, but not till next summer. So no contract just yet. No contract means no money. No money means the deal isn't worth the paper it's not written on. In fact, the major upshot from these events is that I had to let the agent go! This was not a business decision since the agent was great. Within a month, I'll have another agent, but this one is my friend and knows no one in the business, and nothing about being an agent of course. Changing agents like this was not a business decision, but it might work out anyway.

My life expectancy was fifty two, the age my old man died at. So far I've had seven years in the gravy!! And this coincides with me taking refuge and starting in on this vajrayana juju, which makes me one of the most fortunate of fortunate creatures. A large part of the rest of my life is going to be spent in various stages of bliss. Beat that!

You can stay in a single room in Kopan Monastery in Kathmandu for just under twelve dollars US a night. If I only had a grand, I could be a millionaire!

The photies were taken this morning at the bus stop. It's light before eight now. Hurrah!