My very recently acquired old age is addling my brainpower. My neurons misfire and my logic gets all squishy and slimy like flan. I labour under the impression that I am still able to handle things I enjoyed greatly not so many years ago, such as martinis, spicy food and disturbing movies.

I don't know if I've already mentioned this over and over again without a break, but it was my birthday on Saturday. Most of the day itself was spent in a hung over, zombie-like state (that makes no sense! I'm pretty sure zombies don't drink. See?! My brain has become so decrepit that I can't even come up with good imagery anymore!) due to AlefAlef's and Johannaburg's insistence that I drink martini after martini. Apparently this is an appropriate old man birthday celebration: fall into inebriation and scream your sex life in great detail over the tumultuous thumpa-thumpa music. I suppose I should take advantage of the fact that I still have a sex life to discuss. Happy Birthday!

Now because I am very very smart, I had scheduled all sorts of activities for the actual day of birthday. This is something I regretted the instant my alarm plunged off the nightstand and jumped up and down on my head yammering. Who sets their alarm on their birthday? My mouth tasted as if an entire colony of spiders had lived and died for generations inside it and no amount of water could wash this away. My head felt as if my cerebellum had been scooped out and devoured (hence the zombie imagery . . . Get it? Get it?).

But none of that stopped me from enjoying my friends and the care they had taken to endure my passage through time. The celebrations began early last week and still continue. I have many incredible friends.

But the fact remains that martinis may no longer play an integral part of my life. And quite frankly, I will not miss them all that much.

The next on my list of old man no-nos is spicy food. A mere decade ago . . . not so very long ago (although I realise that this was still when some of my dear regular readers were still in their single digits) I used to like my food so hot it made me cry. I would gather with friends for Malaysian food, ask for it as spicy as it could come, and then drown it in Vietnamese chilli sauce. Last night for my birthday supper at a pleasant Mexican restaurant in Old Cabbagetown with Cute Capitalist Landlord, I only consumed a few bland chillies and some moderately spicy sausages. This morning I discovered just how much glop of all possible qualities and consistencies resides in the human body. Very educational. As odd as it is to feel as if I am expelling much of my body weight, I have no regrets. Cute Capitalist Landlord and I have almost ten years of friendship and that was the point of the meal.

Finally, I must consider very carefully my logic behind movie choices. More specifically, I must carefully consider my logic in all of my decisions related to personal edification. Movies, especially Hollywood movies, and edification don't appear to be old friends, but one particular recent movie has intrigued me and terrified at the same time.

I am afraid of water. Although I am a strong swimmer, water deeper than my waist frightens me. When I was a kid, I couldn't take bubble baths because I was afraid of not being able to see what was swimming in what I was sitting in. You will get me to perform open-heart surgery on myself before you get me on a cruise. I swear I saw a gigantic plesiosaur in the murk below me the last time I went canoeing.

Following the logic that if you're afraid of heights you should go skydiving, I thought going to see "Open Water" with Medical Diagram Boy, a movie in which the bulk of the action takes places between two abandoned tourists floating in the middle of the ocean would help me get over this fear. And I'm sure most of you can already see the flaw in your logic. Going to see a movie about shark bait floating above a mile of ocean when you're afraid of water is the same as going to see "Alive" to get over a fear of flying or "Silence of the Lambs" to get over a fear of psychopathic maniacs.

As we got our first view of the tip of a shark fin slicing through the water I understood the folly of my reasoning. Seeing the muscly boy with the sexy lip piercing and angel face – not Medical Diagram Boy, by the way – beside me cringing behind his fingers in the seat beside me made me feel a little bit better (even though he wasn't accompanying me), but I spent most of the movie wishing that my bag of popcorn could somehow protect me from the sharks that were circling beneath my seat, waiting to drag me down screaming to the bowels of the Paramount and devour me.

"The Blair Witch Project" was supposed to be, with its low budget, simple theme, tiny cast, and characters completely at the mercy of their horrifying circumstance. "Witch", however intriguing it may have been, was mostly a yawner for me. Shriek! Piles of pebbles! Stick figures! Snore. Not so with this one. The most you see of a shark is a shadow in the deep or the tip of a fin, but I could barely speak as the credits rolled. I am quite certain that I have caused myself even more trauma rather than get over my irrational fear. Showers are now terrifying to me.

So now I have a bigger fear, harsher dietary restrictions, but some excellent friends (not all of whom have been mentioned here, but my gratitude is nonetheless very much alive). So that's a pretty good way to start a new arbitrary number.