Gabriel von Max, *Anna Katharina Emmerick*, 1885

Sir Paul, last night I was restive, not in the sense of being unable to remain still because I was bored, more like a stubborn horse refusing to budge, moving backwards or sideways, refusing to advance, no doubt because as of midnight your “when I’m sixty-four” bit of drollery was full-on upon me, which means I am now a perfect square and a perfect cube in perfect union with the symbol of the paramount chaos and the “God number”, which is the seed of life and the universe, commensurate with the number of nucleotides in the genetic code, the number of squares on a chessboard, the number of hexagrams in the I Ching, the number of generations from Adam to Jesus, and, according to the visions of the bedridden stigmatist Ann-Catherine Emmerich, whose bandaged-head likeness graces the top of this page, the age of the Virgin Mary when she was raised into heaven at the end of her earthly life but – and this is a big, big but – I have a cold, my leg hurts, I’m close to broke, my breath smells, my farts stink, it’s been raining nonstop for three days, I still don’t know the order of the planets or how blockchain works or where my pancreas is or why the Democrats lost the working class or which is better, ibuprofen or paracetamol, and I have yet to write a single opening line anywhere near as good as your “When I get older, losing my hair” or John’s “I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together.” And I probably never will.

The run-on monstrosity above certainly continues the losing streak.

If I'd been out till quarter to three,
Would you lock the door?
Will you still need me, will you still feed me,
When I'm sixty-four? Ooh.

Ooh indeed. My daughter, who has a much worse cold than me but isn’t fucking whining about it, just told me you’re not supposed to work on your birthday, especially at my age, so I’ll tie this up and send it out. But first, have you heard of desire lines? They’re shortcuts – more direct routes from points A to points B. They’re also forms of civil disobedience, strayings from accepted paths, not in some wafty road-less-travelled sense but to get where the paths ought to get faster, because we all have to get somewhere, and we want to get there in a sensible and efficient – but not necessarily orderly – fashion.

I'm sure you've taken such paths. They’re everywhere. This one was posted on Reddit just yesterday.