Twenty-Seven
Happy birthday to me... just once. Please?
I don't have happy birthdays. It just doesn't happen. Part of it comes from being a New Year's baby so every thing's kind of washed-out and shut down on my birthday. Most of it though is just bad luck. It's nothing to do with expectations. Even without the addition, "...and it's my birthday," they'd still be bad days.
This year was one of the worst (though not "spending the whole day alone and then having the girl I'm crushing on come out to me" bad. That maintains a special place in the cold, dark pit of my heart). I'd spent NYE in Bristol, IN with a bunch of old friends drinking, snacking and playing Wii Sports which was all great. Best NYE I've ever had. So good I shaved my head (pictures pending). I'd write about that but, as Charles Schultz noted with Charlie Brown, good times aren't funny.
It all went downhill on my birthday. To explain why, here's a Google Map of the general route between Bristol, IN and my home. I took a different route-all highways-but it's about the same distance and time. Note the approximate drive time on the left. I left Bristol at 1:30 in the afternoon.
I got home at 12:30 that night.
I spent most of my birthday on the road feeling tired, worn out and crappy. And there was nothing on the radio. If you'll pardon the digression, I'd like to include this open letter to radio:

Dear Radio,

Stop sucking.

Sincerely,

Don

I honestly mean that. I want to love radio. I want to tune in and listen. But if the best I can say about scanning through the dial over and over again while driving through a total of five states was that I caught the back end of an AC/DC song then radio is doing something wrong. There's been a critical flaw in the radio business's philosophy. They think people are turning away from traditional radio for other outlets like satellite and podcasts. That's wrong. Radio is driving people away from traditional radio and towards other outlets. I'm going to try to make my show not do that.
But back to the matter at hand.
Yes, happy birthday Don. The gods of travel have granted you a crappy crappy trip. Things just went wrong. There were turns that weren't marked, I missed the detours to things I wanted to see, I forgot my bag in Bristol and had to go back to pick it up (only tacked an hour onto the trip, but a bad omen none the less). Just no fun. Then I come home and find out the deadline I was rushing to meet had been bumped back by twenty-four hours. There was no need to leave when I did at all.
Today was much better. I went out and bought myself some birthday gifts. One is .Hack//SIGN: Infection for the PS2. I'll probably try playing that this weekend. The other was a pound of black yarn. I've taken up knitting and I'm working on an afghan. Buying the yarn was a total kick. I went to Jo-Ann Fabrics, walked up to the cashier and she asked me if I was buying the yarn for myself.
Maybe I should clarify.
I'm 6' 4", 180 lbs., have a 1/4" of hair on my head and I was wearing black jeans, a black hoodie and a pair of black and red Chuck Taylors. I must not have looked like a knitter. Now that I think about it, I probably should have said, "Yes, the doctors told me to after they put me back on my medication." And then just stared at her. Instead I said yes and that I was making a big afghan.
Tomorrow my sister's coming by and I'll finally get to open my presents. I'm excited. It'll be fun. I'll even get to play the Munchkin game my sister bought me for Christmas.
I'm twenty-seven years old. Whee.