Irregular Prime

To paraphrase Casablanca: It's December 2005 in North Carolina. What time is it in New York? I bet they're asleep in New York. I bet they're asleep all over America.

I'm up late. I've been thinking about today for a while. My 37th birthday. It's an oddly unroundable number 37. Prime. Not divisible by any other number than itself and one. The fifth lucky prime number. The first irregular prime number. Last prime birthday was 31 and that was an easy number to think about because it added something to thirtysomething. Thirty-seven sounds so unmonumental. I made me look for ways 37 is special.

37 is the atomic number of rubidium.
37º Celsius is normal human body temperature.
37 used to be the telephone dialing country code for East Germany before the unification.
A European roulette wheel has 37 slots.
The Green Monster in Fenway Park is 37 feet tall.
Shakespeare wrote 37 plays.

At age 37:
Abraham Lincoln is first elected to the House of Representatives.
Rick meets Ilsa again in Casablanca.
Poets Lord Byron, Arthur Rimbaud, Aleksandr Pushkin, Robert Burns, and Dylan Thomas die. So does Van Gogh and Lou Gerhig. Michael Hutchence of INXS goes too. Bobby Darin dies.
In Monty Python and the Holy Grail the peasant Dennis meets King Arthur...
      King Arthur: Old woman.
      Dennis: Man.
      King Arthur: Man, sorry. What knight lives in that castle over there?
      Dennis: I'm 37.
      King Arthur: What?
      Dennis: I'm 37. I'm not old.
John Travolta's character in Phenomenon gets special powers.
Michelle Pfeifer appears in To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday.
Dolores Del Río films Flor silvestre and becomes the most famous movie star in Mexico.
Joe DiMaggio retires from baseball.
Gioacchino Rossini stops writing operas.
Igor Stravinsky moves to Paris.
Julia Child takes her first cooking class in Paris.