And now we are thirty-three

I’ve never really known what to do with my birthday. The realities of being haphazardly employed mean going out and celebrating are off the agenda and I’m pretty sure the last time I tried was back in 2006 or so. The idea of celebrating my birthday has always seems kinda awkward anyway. Existing for a year isn’t necessarily an achievement, you know?

This year I seem to have settled upon ordering a cheese pizza and re-reading the introduction to Haruki Murakami’s Birthday Stories anthology, which will inevitably lead to the rereading of the anthology itself in days to come. Later on I’ll regret the fact that medication means I can’t drink a glass of wine with dinner, then bugger off to play DnD with friends. Given that I’m still tired and sluggish from the medication, I may even have a nap before I go.

Really, this is business as usual for a Thursday. So I took a photograph, just to mark the occasion. The look of grim boredom on my face has more to do with medication and lack of sleep than any real dislike of getting older (although this seems to be a theme with birthdays – last year I was hopped up on Ibuprofen for shoulder pain). To be honest, I *like* getting older. Being twenty was a pain in the arse and anyone who tries to tell me that my school years were the best days of my life is going to get kicked.

Of course, the cool part of my birthday is that I get to share the day with my friend, the inestimable Ben Francisco, and in that there is no mental quandary about what to do. Other people’s birthdays are easy to celebrate, for they mark a socially acceptable space in which you can gush about their awesomeness and Ben is among the most awesome of the awesome peeps.

To whit, Happy Birthday Ben, hoopiest of the hoopy froods (and if you missed it the first time around, I recommend going and listening to the podcast of Tio Gilberto and the Twenty-Seven Ghosts, for it is a fine story that should clarify why the whole damn world should be celebrating Ben’s continuing existence).