On My Birthday, I Come to Blogger to Get Away from Facebook

Hi. I'm 31 now.

I used to wonder where I was going to start going gray. Turns out, I never should have wasted any time wondering about that, as I have skipped gray and have gone straight to white. It's starting, right at the front of my hair, most of the white hairs appear in a friendly little clique on the left side of the part of my hairline. There are some on the right side, too, but more on the left. Maybe I use those left-hand brain cells more and they are wearing out their welcome.

Don't worry, though. This isn't going to be one of those self-indulgent posts where someone who's just entering his thirties bitches and whines about how "old" he is. I mean, we're still going to be self-indulgent as all fuck here, but not in that way.

Do you remember your first birthday that included Facebook? I don't, but I expect that it was a pretty significant boon to my self esteem. It probably increased the amount of recognition my birthday received by approximately 8,000-fold. Of course, there was also that negative, judging aspect of it where I undoubtedly said, "These motherfuckers barely spoke to me in high school, and now they're wishing me a happy birthday? This is gay."

And, really, it is gay (and by "gay" I mean "superficial" as well as "the homosexual act where one man inserts his [hopefully lubricated] penis into the [hopefully lubricated] anus of another man) but I suppose the greater question one has to ask oneself is, "So what?" I'll bet Zuckerfacebook is almost singlehandedly responsible for halving the number of birthday-related suicides worldwide. Seriously, who could off themselves on their birthday after witnessing the veritable cavalcade of succinct though well-meaning well-wishers alighting one's Wall?

Maybe on the day after, that I could see, but not on your birthday. No. Not in the Facebook era. No, ma'am. Or sir. Or giraffe.

As you may have gleaned from the tone of this particular blog entry, I am feeling a tad weird about my birthday this year. I've been a bit melancholy in the days approaching May 12th, but I'm feeling better as the date gets closer. This is a birthday of firsts, in many ways. To start, it's my 31st, so... there's that. It's a real mental health-related birthday, which would be my first one of those. It's the first birthday I've had (in ten or so years) where I've been in therapy, and I feel pretty good about that. It'll also be the first birthday of mine where I'll be spending eight hours of it inside a locked psychiatric hospital (and being paid for it, no less!) and that'll be... interesting, I have no doubt.

I suppose there are some who get totally fanoozled about their birthdays, but I'm just not that way. I think a birthday is a good time to eat a bunch of crap that you maybe wouldn't normally eat, and I don't mind receiving things that I want, because I'm a pretty materialistic sonofabitch, if we're being straight with each other, but I'm also in favor of a contemplative approach to birthdayism-- something that isn't perhaps encouraged by the Facebookizization of the birthday. I try to think about where I am in life on this day-- what I've done in the past year, and what I've yet to do.

Thinking about where I am satisfies me. Thinking about what I've done in the past year kind of amazes me. Thinking about what I've yet to do scares the Christ-juice out of me.

I'm scared.

Fortunately, I've got this girl who promised me, under a chuppah dappled in sun and sunflowers, that she would hold my hand. Or maybe I promised her. Either way, it luckily works out the same.

There's this website that tells you what coolio things were going on in the world on the day in which you were born. In 1980, on this date, "Call Me" by Blondie was the chart-topping song in the U.S. I've never heard it. Edmund Muskie was on the cover of TIME. I've never heard of him. The average price of a dozen eggs was $0.91. I have no idea what the fuck a dozen eggs costs now, so that factoid kind of falls flat on me.

Apparently, the Grateful Dead on the day I was born at Boston Garden. Fucking hippies. Gabriel Faure was born on May 12th, a long time ago. He wrote a pretty kickin' requiem that I like. It's nothing I'd particularly choose to listen to, though, although I'm sure lots of people do on a quiet day. I think composers like Faure and Mozart would be freaked out if they were resurrected and they found out that people pop their requiem masses into CD players or bring them up on iPods when they're jogging. That's just fucking bizarre, isn't it?

I'm spending my lunch hour with my father today. We're going to dine at a park near my work. After work, I'm going to stop over and see my mother, and then I will spend the rest of the afternoon and evening with my buddy. I won't be seeing a single other soul for the rest of the day. Random people from my past and present will pop up throughout the day on Facebook to say hello, and that's okay. At least they're where they belong. I was never one to surround myself with tons people on my birthday. I don't like lots of people, and I don't like the Grateful Dead.

But I'm maybe starting to like my birthday.