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May 17, 2005
"It's not just my birthday. It's also Bob Dylan's. Go bother him."
My birthday is next week. At this point it’s beginning to feel like it is stalking me. I feel like I’m on a ship and every time I turn I glimpse the white whale getting closer and closer. I feel like it’s just a matter of time before he breeches beneath us and I wind up clinging to a piece of wreckage.
Birthdays are hard for me. (Christmas as well.) It’s not Fabulous Babe’s fault. Most of it goes back to when I was a kid. My mom forgot a few of them which didn’t help. My dad was usually out of the country. (He always sent really neat toys though.) My grandparents always did their best but things were always a little off just because the dynamic was a little odd. (When I was 6 they were 54 and 56.)
As I got older it was hard to break the cycle. Part of me just wanted to shut everyone out and have it pass as quickly as possible with as little notice as possible. Then, just when I thought I was getting ahead of all of it, a couple of days before I turned thirty I ended up having a CAT scan that found the tumor. (I do remember that I drank a LOT that year.)
A year later was my first birthday with Fabulous Babe. We took the day off and headed into Toronto for the day. (We ate at the Indian café and hung around downtown.) It was the first time I had ever taken the day off to just do nothing and it was glorious.
Fabulous Babe has been asking me what I want for my birthday and I really have no clue. I suppose I can knock out some soft of list but there isn’t really anything that I’m burning to own or do. I like surprises but Fabulous Babe tends not to have the time to really pull that sort of thing off. I think we are going to go out this weekend for dinner somewhere. Knowing my lack of imagination it will probably be Las Margaritas.
My favorite birthday cake ever was when I was 5 or 6: a strawberry cake that was iced dark purple and dark green in quarters. When you cut into the cake it looked like it was bleeding. My family was repulsed and I thought it was simply wonderful. I ate cake for a week.
Posted by Jim at May 17, 2005 12:58 AM