There doesn’t seem to be a rational explanation for why we’re in the office today. I haven’t done an ounce of work all morning. There’s a uselessness that descends before a long break which, for me, extends until December 26, holiest of days: Dangerous K’s birthday. The big 2-4. HA - I’m not old yet. Enjoy your active adult retirement village, Father. Actually, I’m a big fan of his town of old folks in South Carolina. I spent a few of my college vacations there and was pleased with my lack of competition in the bathing suit arena. It’s a place where self-conscious chubby girls can go to the gym and feel superior to the blonde on the next elliptical over. These things are important to me.
My birthday’s unfortunate timing has long been a sore spot. Throughout childhood, peers would distribute cupcakes or other carbohydrate laden treats to signify the arrival of their birthday. Being born the day after Christmas means school is never in session for such festivities. The horror didn’t stop after college like I’d promised myself at the tender age of 7. My friends still have the absurd notion that they should spend the holidays with their families, wherever that may be. What they don’t understand is that Boxing Day is observed only in Canada, freakish carnival that it is, so the 26th does not count as part of the official American holiday season. I welcome them to celebrate Christmas as they see fit, but it’s just selfish to include the only day of the year when the world is ordered to revolve around me.
Normally my birthday consists of opening presents from my family and then reading on a couch curled up under an afghan (the blanket, not the nationality – I don’t think I could concentrate on a book if there was a terrorist lying on top of me). This is not a reflection of my lack of social life. It’s a reflection on the quality of my friends who will not drop everything they are doing to throw me a surprise party.
For example, on my 21st birthday, banished from college to the dirty south (which my alleged friends casually referred to as an “inaccessible location”), my father and evil stepmother took me to a steakhouse called Montana’s which has since been closed for health code violations but served an excellent bison burger. Here’s the clincher: I didn’t have a single drink. I only really drink to get drunk since idly sipping margaritas adds empty calories and I’m shallow like that. The calories cease to be empty if they result in my intoxication. That’s a solid purpose in my mind.
Even worse than my absentee friends, is the type of person who takes advantage of the timing and doubles up on presents. I’ve heard the phrase “Here’s your birthday slash Christmas present” a few dozen times. Those unfortunates are no longer counted amongst my comrades. Not that I would dump a friend over something so petty! But come March when I tell them that they received their birthday present on Christmas, there seems to be a fatal disconnect and we drift our separate ways.
Though I try to pump myself up with the ol’ Second Coming of Christ shtick, I just can’t get myself worked up over my birthday. Between the noneventfulness and the occasional screwing over in the presents department, it’s just not worth the effort. Too many disappointments, too many afghans. Purportedly, Beau has planned something so this may not be a blog entry of foreshadowing prior to an anticlimactic finish. This may be the introduction to a super birthday spectacular. That now lies entirely on his shoulders. The shoulders attached to the man who has forced me to eat things from a can (like soup and in one desperate moment, peas) in his absence for the past 2 days and is again abandoning me for Christmas to see relatives in another state. No pressure though.
(In the event that Beau does feel pressured, he should know that a puppy would immediately get him out of trouble.)
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