(no subject)

[dherblay]

My most recent update reminds me of an incident from my trip to Iran: I spent a lot of time hanging around with the two drivers assigned to our tour bus; you could often find us grabbing a few spare minutes otherwise wasted waiting for some laggard in the tour group and filling those spare minutes with cigarette smoke. (Many Iranians were surprised by me, as they had never seen an American who smoked in person. I went through all sorts of Posnerian economic analyses trying to explain why although there are plenty of American smokers, they don't seem to do much sandalista-style traveling.) Once Hossein asked how old I was, and, quick as lighting, I replied, "Thirty-three." After a couple of minutes I drew up; "Wait," I said, "I'm actually only thirty-two. But I might be 33 in the Islamic calendar."

One should note that this self-involved anecdote does nothing to explicate the mysteries of the fabled East, and instead just demonstrates that my brain is farina. Behind the cut-tag, mostly for my own amusement, are the Gregorian dates of my Islamic birthdays until I turn fifty:

8-Feb-05
28-Jan-06
18-Jan-07
7-Jan-08
27-Dec-08
16-Dec-09
5-Dec-10
25-Nov-11
13-Nov-12
2-Nov-13
23-Oct-14
12-Oct-15
1-Oct-16
20-Sep-17
9-Sep-18
30-Aug-19
18-Aug-20