The weather yesterday was absolutely glorious.

I was inside working (the store website has over 9,000 links now, I sadly noticed, as I was doing link management for Clients 1 and 3). I went to the gym, in fact, rather than walking outside. And then I came home and worked on Client #2’s project, thinking deeply on the question of keyword density. This is a matter of some controversy in the field, so I interrupted Client #2’s vacation to ask his philosophy on it. He was up on my Buddy List, so it wasn’t quite like calling him on the phone, was it? If you are on someone’s Buddy List, then by showing yourself you are declaring yourself available to be asked questions regarding your philosophy on keyword density.

But at lunch time I went outside and sat in the sun with my ham and cheese.

Are you old enough to remember the days when we could bask in the sun like lizards? It was not, boys and girls, that we were immune to skin cancer, wrinkles, and sun spotting. We just didn’t know about it. Those of us who didn’t sunburn used to go around all the time with no sunscreen, and then we sunbathed as well. Vain girls oiled themselves and worked on their tans, and the rest of us thought nothing of lying in the sun while we studied. This is why people from previous generations are wrinkled and spotty.

Actually, I never heard of anyone having skin cancer in those days. They got old and leathery, certainly, but we didn’t know the word “melanoma.”

But you know, the sun feels wonderful. It was in the 70s, and I have a nice chair by the vegetable garden, and I luxuriated in the feel of it for a good fifteen minutes before the clamor of mental reminders about the dangers of the sun sent me inside.

I was talking about this with a friend, a fellow bookseller last night. Her mother was Cherokee. In her youth, having accepted the idea that fair skin was prettier, she always avoided the sun. When she became old, she sat with the sun on her face all the time, enjoying the warmth. People chased her around with sunblock, but she still grew as dark as a penny. That’s how much she enjoyed the sun.

I say, if you’re 90, you can do what you please. How much more wrinkled could you get, and why would you care? I like the thought of the old woman enjoying the sun.

I have more work at the computer today, but I believe I will also take a hike.

I will put on sunblock first. Of course.