Happy belated Birthday to me

I’m having problems figuring out where to begin this. Let’s start with:

I just had my birthday. How’s that? Yep, I’m another year older. I’m not all that impressed with this particular birthday. I’ve been happy to keep it on the down-low for the most part. But something has been nagging at me about it.

First off, I wanted to have a 33 1/3 birthday party on my 33rd and 1/3rd birthday, wherein we’d all sit around and listen to my favorite records at my favorite speed, 33 1/3. I did not do this. This was an oversight on my part and, as I began to fee the full ramifications of the aging process, one I cannot correct. That time is gone. And it’s weird to acknowledge that. I cannot go back and do something I wanted to do. Or I could but it would lack the same charm. I’d be faking it. And that’s just cheap. So no 33 1/3 birthday party for me.

However, that’s just a minor thing, comparatively. See, I’m not what you’d call a deeply religious person. I have some superstitions and some rituals and some quiet beliefs but for the most part of me, when I envision ‘Life’, I see that guy at the end of the A-Team sitting at his typewriter banging away and then he grabs the paper from the machine and flings it over his shoulder and it turns all animated and lands on a pile of animated papers and then there’s that weird guitar. Do you know what I’m talking about? Like where the “Sit, Ubu, sit…good dog (woof, woof)” thing used to be. Or that cat that meowed at the end of WKRP in Cincinatti. Anyway, that guy. I picture him writing out my life.

I think the reason I picture a writer over some deity watching and judging me is because I can relate to a writer more than I can a deity. Writers have ups and downs, and lulls. And horrible habits like smoking and drinking. Also, life seems so rich with recurring themes and heavy handed symbolism that it often seems like a badly written story more than anything else. Or at least mine does. I don’t want to speak for the person writing your story.


But here’s the thing: I feel like little ‘prompts’ are given to us when things are going the way they should. I’d compare it to when people say ‘everything is falling into place.’ Of course it is, because you’re following the course that that writer at the end of A-Team wants you to go in, so now he’s banging away all this crap on the typewriter to happen. He’s inspired. Or she is. Whomever is at your typewriter. I think the prompts also come in the form of de ja vu, just to say ‘hey, here’s a preview of the next episode of Hunter’. Everything picks up and starts hopping in a positive, often overwhelming, way.

All of this to say, for the first time in my life, I feel like I’m waaaayyyyy off course. And that, my friends, is a horrible feeling. I feel so far off from where I’m supposed to be that I’ve stopped getting any sorts of prompts. I think that guy may have stopped typing and Ubu may be typing now instead of sitting like a good dog. And other than a dog trying to type, I can’t justify how I got into this position, how I got this far off course. To be truthful, it’s probably my own fault because at some point, I stopped plotting a course and rather started sailing for the horizon.

On a good note, we as people have given ourselves all sorts of opportunities for getting a fresh start. We have whole new years to focus on every 365 days (2008 has been sort of a shit year anyway and I’m ready for it to be over, and by coincidence today is EXACTLY the halfway point). We have beginnings of the week every 7 days (I was out of work on Monday). Heck, we have a new day everyday, whether we want it or not, and that gives us the opportunity to fix things and have a fresh start. And we have birthdays. I don’t see myself as the ‘drastic change’ type, but I am going to make a conscious effort to get on some sort of track and get that guy typing again. Or get that cat meowing and Ubu sitting. And that lion roaring.

As for the birthday party thing, well, in another 11 years, I can have my 45 rpm party, and that’s plenty of time to get together a bunch of 45s. Besides, that party will probably go a lot faster at that speed and give me more time to get some sleep.