Well, shit, dear reader…no point in trying to ignore it anymore…it’s my birthday.  For the record, I hate my birthday and think that, like all birthdays past the age of 21, it is a completely pointless thing to acknowledge.  Which opinion I made most crystalline to Mgmt on this morning’s call.  But they were, as usual, insistent.
“I don’t even want to acknowledge my birthday, let alone write about it,” I said with all the authority I could muster at 06:00.
“Your readers want to know about you.  They want to celebrate things like your birthday.”  Which is simply bullshit of the lowest order.  “Let them think I was created in a lab,” I told them, already fairly drunk for that time of morning.
I know you don’t think I was created in a lab, dear reader, but I also know that adults who put significant emphasis on their birthdays, especially men, come across as, well, rather pathetic and weird to the rest of the adults who have been far too busy with real concerns to worry about anyone’s random-ass birthday for decades.
I don’t mean to be a killjoy, another curmudgeon yelling at the damn kids to get off his lawn and please, dear God, quit singing Happy Birthday at him.  [Note to self: the lyrics to that insipid fucking song should be changed to “Happy birthday at you.”  Because that’s really what’s going on here.  Most people over the age of 30, certainly 35, would really rather you not make any kind of big deal about it.  After a certain point, the “celebratory” nature decreases to almost nil, and birthdays become rather brutal and cruel reminders another year of the rapidly decreasing number of years we have in this life is gone forever.  The Clock is ticking, and there is no denying that the hour is growing late.
Of course, I know people are just trying to be nice.  It’s the one day out of the year when people are comfortable telling you that they’re glad you’re around.  And that’s great.  But a simple, maybe, dare I wish, discreet “Happy Birthday,” is plenty.  But I get it…and despite whatever bluster you read here, being wished happy birthday doesn’t actually make me conniptive or cause me to launch a cake in anger.  I like being Happy Birthdayed as much as anyone else.
I guess it’s just my age and stage of life.  Children’s birthdays are milestones and therefore almost demand celebration.  They have all these things they want to do but can’t until they’re older/taller/heavier/whatever.  They have Goals.  But in middle age, whatever goals you still have to accomplish are typically not related to or dependent upon age, outside of the rather dark “I’d better get this done before I drop dead.”  But once you’ve been adult for a good long while, and most milestones are distant in the rearview mirror, the only milestone left is Death.  And at that point, birthdays start to pack a bitter punch.
But never mind all that, dear reader…today we shall celebrate!  My personal celebration shall include lunch with the fuckin’ loved ones at some inappropriately ritzy steakhouse, getting absolutely shithoused on a wicked whiskey flight or two, and over-priced deserts that are literally on fire.  Then back to the Safe House for an orgy of homemade chocolate cupcakes, Jack Daniels, and writing.  As your mentor/role model/ersatz life-coach, I advise you to do the exact same thing.  Let’s get weird.

N.P.: “Happy Birthday – Epic Version” – Rok Nardin