There's a public radio interview going on in the background as I'm writing with an author who's written a book called A Book of Illusions, which may be a good book, may not, but his comment on turning fifty struck a chord. You become aware that your body is beginning to fail. You look around and see how many of your contemporaries are dead. My parents generation is going rapidly, some of my friends, to war, to accident, to, um, cancer. Good people. In a world that played fair, they'd still be alive. Tomorrow we learn more, my body and I. This uncomfortable grumbling of muscles and organs I've been experiencing over these last two years, what's that about? Growing older? Could be. My doctor said, well, it's not cancer, not after two years, because cancer after two years makes itself apparent. (Another "if you'd had it this long you'd be dead". Physician humor. An attempt to put the patient at ease. I seem to be building a collection.)

Wednesday. I called the doctor's office this morning to confirm my appointment for the afternoon and discovered the appointment was scheduled for yesterday afternoon and I'd missed it. The doctor isn't in Wednesdays. My office computer calendar said Wednesday. I came home and looked at the appointment card taped to my kitchen cabinet and it said Tuesday, the 10th. I did the same thing when I had the biopsy appointment. I'm obviously freaked at some subconscious level, but I'll go in tomorrow.