So today I turn 36. Which is old. Really fucking old.
Here are a few thoughts on this completely unmomentous occasion:
I need to stop saying I'm 5'10 1/2" tall. It may be true, but it just sounds desperate, like I'm trying to seem superior to guys who are 5'10". I think I started making sure to include that half-inch when I was still in my teens and there was some chance that I'd eventually put on a spurt and make it to 5'11". That possibility no longer exists. In fact, it's only a little while longer until I start shrinking. I may as well just call myself 5'10" now and get used to it.
I have lost all patience for annoying goddamn TV commercials. I've grown curmudgeonly enough that I actually yell at the screen. The current number one target of my wrath is the horrifyingly awful follow up to the Head On commercials. The fuckwits have apparently gotten hip to the fact that their commercials are both unintelligible and irritating and have made a "clever" follow-up in which the worst actress this side of Andie MacDowell interrupts the commercial to mock it before declaring, "Head On, I hate your commercials...but I love your product!" Well, Head On, I also hate your commercials...and invite you to shove your product directly up your ass! Shove it directly up your ass! Shove it directly up your ass!
As I age, I am not the least bit freaked out by the notion of my own mortality. I am just increasingly depressed about the various and sundry ways I've fucked things up so far.
I've got an odd kind of mentality about my birthday and work. See, I don't make a point of telling people, "It's my birthday!" Because people who make you write their birthdays on your calendar are obnoxious jagoffs who are basically begging you to make a fuss over them. I don't want to do that. It's needy. It's pathetic. And yet, I get depressed when nobody wishes me a Happy Birthday all day. It's kind of like I'm a schizophrenic retard, isn't it? It gets worse. A few weeks back, a class of my students asked me if they could use my class period to throw a party for their Math teacher. I agreed, because I try to be a relatively nice guy when I can. And as they rushed around, putting up streamers and balloons and screaming at each other to hide quietly so as not to spoil the surprise, I thought, "They've never thrown a party for me." And it's true. I used to tell myself that it was just because my birthday came fairly early in the year and they weren't organized enough by then to put a party together. But this party was in late September, which shot that theory all to hell. The truth is simply that my students don't like enough to bother. And that bummed the shit out of me. Then I sat through the actual party itself. Which consisted of a gross-looking Carvel ice cream cake, cheese doodles, non-diet soda and music I don't like. By the time the period was over, I was actually pretty glad that they've never bothered to throw me a fete.
So tonight, I'm going to go get drunk. 'Cause, y'know, that makes everything better.
You are a much-loved schizophrenic retarded curmugeon! And you are still younger than some of the rest of us, so happy friggin' birthday, you whipper-snapper!
: 4:08 AM
