Thirty

That's all I kept thinking about yesterday. I'm thirty years-old. Now, I'm not complaining. I'm very happy that I've had thirty years and I hope I get to stick around for a whole lot more, but I would just like to have a few more accomplishments to my name. That's all.

I had a good birthday, even if it was boring. Joey (my 14-year-old cousin) and I watched a movie, I drank wine. I gave him some. Is this starting to sound a little creepy? He didn't drink much of the little bit I gave him, but the idea was to let him have a little alcohol so it would seem less romantic, off-limits and appealing, and then maybe he wouldn't think getting trashed was as awesome as a lot of other teens do.

Yesterday I got a ridiculous deal on a digital audio recorder. Originally $109.00, I got it for $54.00 at Best Buy. What's wrong with this thing? I wondered about it. I'm skeptical. I'm also pretty broke and I need to do some interviews. The recorder I had was being unreliable and wouldn't record when I needed it to. This one feels like a lightweight piece of garbage, though.

I wrote about five pages of a short story that I based off of a story in the newspaper Friday. It's about two girls in Somalia who were accused by militants of being spies and were executed by a firing squad in front of the members of their town. Unwilling witnesses to the executions, the people who watched were outraged and horrified. I don't know how much of the story can be real. I want to use the real names of the victims. I also don't want to have to make up a village. I can use the true info, can't I?