The New York Times recently published a list of “The Best Books of the 21st Century”

and they got a lot of nice (and some snippy) publicity for it. The list was compiled from

the choices of over 500 writers, critics, celebrities, and maybe some real people too.

This was quickly and efficiently followed by another list, this from the comments and

offerings of Times’ readers. 

Since I don’t read a lot of new fiction, aside from a few primarily genre authors, I didn’t expect to have read many of these titles. And I was right. From the original “experts’” list, I had read exactly one of the 100. That’s a solid 1%.  That one book was LINCOLN IN THE BARDO, which I had read only at the insistence of a casual friend.

As I expected, I did a little better on the Readers’ list. Four of 100 (4 sweet %). These were: LINCOLN IN THE BARDO (again), HAMNET, 11/22/63, and THE DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY.

I’d love to say that I’m going to make a strong effort to read all those other unread modern books, going to take a lot of those folks’ suggestions. But I’m not. Frankly, while those may be wonderful books, genuine classics-to-be, they just don’t seem interesting to me. Call me doofus, I don’t care. I already have a couple of shelves of unread books to conquer. Plus I’m sure there will be more from Stephen King, Michael Connelly, John Sandford, Nick Hornby. Those are my 21st century books. So, thanks Times, but I’m good.

Today is my mother’s 100th birthday. Spoiler!--she didn’t make it. 

Momma’s was not a joy-filled life. Most of her 83 years were not so good.

Too much illness, too much sadness, too much worry, too much poverty,

too little joy by far. 

If I could know that she’d live 17 more GOOD years, I’d wish she was still

here. But odds being what they are, and age being what it is, the cards are

seriously stacked against that.

         So I'll not be selfish and, instead, try to be glad she was spared the likelihood

of more unhappy years.

         Whatever I am is entirely due to my mom. Those who know me will, I hope,

forgive her for this. She did the best she could with the materials at hand.

I miss you, Momma, not only on this centenary, but every day.  To you,

to the empty, unhearing air, I wish a Happy Birthday.

Couple of days ago, I had to attend a sort of Zoom meeting, something very rare for me. I found the

channel, twisted the red wires together, tuned in on the electrical device, threw the necessary switches,

adjusted the rabbit ears, pushed the big red button and lit the fuse. My face popped up on screen and

I flinched. Hard. Almost fell out of my chair.

Now, I do know what I look like. Despite my best efforts to the contrary, I see myself in the mirror almost every day . I know I’m old, grey, wrinkled, sagged and generally repulsive. So this shouldn’t have been such a gol-durn shock to the system.

But I quickly realized the problem. I can’t explain it, but I recognized it. I knew my face would pop up onscreen, but, for whatever reason, the image I expected, the image I previewed in my mind ahead of time, was not the old man in the mirror. 

I thought I would see myself as I was maybe forty-fifty years ago. No grey hair, no more than sun wrinkles, relatively fit and tan. Not as I look now, but a face which would not scare children. 

Why did I expect such unreality in my appearance? I don’t know. I’d recently been sorting some old photos online, so maybe--maybe--I expected to see the same young face on Zoom that I’d seen in my computer’s photo files. That’s the best I got.

But, lemme tell ya, there must be some sort of denial (or perhaps decay) in the mind of a man who knows the ravaged face in the mirror all too well and who still expects to see young Dorian. Must be.