When yer twenty-two

That subject header is the name of a Flaming Lips song by the way! Don't ever stop doing that. Putting song titles in your subject headers and little snatches of lyrics in the middle of your sentences is part of what makes you you. If it starts to embarrass you or bore, that's how you know you're getting old, so keep it up. Anyway, happy 22nd birthday. Hope you're spending it with friends. For your 21st you were in Edinburgh... as I write this, it hasn't happened yet, but I'm sure it was nothing special. Unlike your 20th, of course, when the whole world changed. I hope you and Rachel are still in touch, even if she's joined the Peace Corps or something similar. Maybe you've even gone to visit her in California, or she's come to visit you in Hobart (or, God forbid, Melbourne). But even if you never meet her in person again, the two of you should still be friends for life. You've both got so much potential, and you each have to see the other achieve it. If you've met someone new by now, someone who you love with all your heart and who loves you back just as much, someone you're so deeply connected to that it doesn't take much of a stretch of the imagination to picture the two of you spending the rest of your lives together, then congratulations. Everyone's proud of you, especially Rachel, I'm sure. Even I'm giving you a little '06 thumbs up. But if not, please don't let it get you down. You can't just make these things happen. If all you want is a bit of meaningless sex, then with a bit of effort you could probably have exactly that. But that's not what you want at all. What you want is love and trust and companionship, and your chances are about as random as your chances of success with your music. In both cases, you can improve yourself and make yourself known to a certain extent, but there's still a hell of a lot of chance involved. That's the path you've taken, the crazy uncertain one, and don't you ever regret it. You're 22, anyhow. D'you know how young 30 is? Well, 25's younger still. And you're 22. (I'm 20, nearly 21, but don't mind me, I'm just the messenger.) I've just made it through a difficult night by writing a couple of letters to the future -- this one, and the one that arrived the day you came back to Hobart (or thereabouts, I don't know how the timezones work on this site). As I was saying just now to March '06 Peter, the Fall are fucking excellent, aren't they? I'm gonna tell you to go and dig out Perverted By Language right now, but with any luck you'll still have it on regular rotation, along with all the other ones. Right now the most recent release is Fall Heads Roll, but maybe there's been something new since then... wait, hang on... Mark's still alive, isn't he? Isn't he?? Don't lie to me, now! This is serious! Goodnight...