Good Grief

Ok, listen up people. (Isn't that totally such a high school teacher thing to say? "Listen up!" Who else says that phrase except for teachers? That and "settle down!" Basically, those are the two things that teachers want out of students. To listen up, and to settle down).

Back to my point. I have a birthday curse and it has got to stop. Something stupid always happens on my birthday, like clockwork. Nothing catastrophic, nothing earth shattering, just something stupid enough to make the day feel un-birthday-ish. My brother and I have a term for when something happens to you that can be chalked up to nothing but bad luck. We call it the Charlie Brown Syndrome. When you have a week where you lock yourself out of your house (hi, Bio-Girl), or you lose your favorite necklace, or you stick your foot in your mouth at an important work meeting- those events, individually, are just random bad luck events. But if you have a day when ALL of these happen, this can be quickly diagnosed as the Charlie Brown Syndrome. I have taken this Syndrome to new levels. Bad luck things may not be happening to me all in one day, but they do happen to me every year, like a fucked up Old Faithful, on my birthday.

I don't know what has happened. I used to have great birthdays. My friends would celebrate me, I would get showered with love, I would have this golden day each year that I would remember fondly forever. But now? Nuh-uh. Not happening. Five years straight. The birthday gods are not smiling on me any more. To be perfectly poetic about it: it sucks royally.

I'm not going to get into the details of each of the past five birthdays and why each of them was equivalent to a poopy parade. It's just too depressing. Let me just stick to my current problems. My birthday is this weekend. I have a birthday dinner with some friends tonight, I have a birthday brunch tomorrow followed by a manicure with another pal, I had birthday plans in the evening. Sunday Nordic Boy has a whole mystery day planned for the two of us. But you know what? Not happening. Because my body has decided to shut down and give me a raging cold wherein the only things I can do are drink warm fluids and watch tv and sleep. This morning? I am unable to talk. The sore throaty-ness has gone from Rita Cosby to Mutey McNo-Sounds. I had to do sicky charades at Nordic Boy this morning to ask him for a glass of water and more tissue. So yeah. Birthday Number 5 in the string of cosmic pratfalls that now commemorates the day I was born. It's getting kind of hard not to start thinking this is some sort of existential sign. Why the bad birthdays? Five in a row has got to MEAN something. I am trying to figure out what the universe is trying to tell me. Shut up about your birthday? Stop trying to celebrate yourself so hard?

I am not accepting this. I am nothing if not able to spin something in my favor. Here's what I am thinking. A lot of people have bad stuff happening to them all the time. Most people, actually. Bad jobs, bad relationships, all-around bad. So, when their birthday comes around, they, more than anyone, deserve to have a great day. A day where they can forget about all their troubles and just have a blissful time. So maybe (watch this! spin spin spin!) I am having the opposite. I have a great life. I am experiencing my bliss on a daily basis. There's not much of anything that I would change about my life at all. So maybe, I am having my birthday celebration every day OTHER than my birthday, and I am getting all the Charlie Brown-ness out of my system all in one go, ON my birthday.

It totally makes sense in my head.

You can totally not believe me if you want, or shake your head silently at the way I am trying to re-invent the 5-Year Birthday Shit Sandwich. Just don't say anything about it. I don't want to see any comments or emails from you all in some sort of cacophony of reality or anything. Just humor me. It's my birthday.

Go shorty! It's my birthday!

I'm out.
Librarian Girl