<\/p>\n
May 2003:\u00a0 Flashback<\/p>\n
There we go! I’m writing this in April, but it’s all about turning 29
\non May 10th. Weird…kind of like those people who have a “living”
\nfuneral when they know they’re going to die. I’ve been to a few of
\nthose and I find them morbid and disgusting. Come say goodbye to so and
\nso. What a retard. It’s like forcing all your friends into one room and
\nsaying “Be nice to me because I’ll be dead before the end of the year.””Ah, get stuffed, George. Dying or not, you’re still a fuckup and I’ll
\nnever forgive you for sleeping with Melissa during sophomore year!”<\/p>\n
My attendance at those events has always been as an employee.
\nThis big mansion in Chevy Chase that rents out space to weddings, Bar
\nMitzvahs and other stuff pays me $15 an hour to drink rum, snarl at
\ncaterers and hike through the woods. Can’t go wrong. Actually, they pay
\nme to watch the house and “put a smile on the face of the
\norganization.” But I can only smile if I’ve fulfilled my drunken
\nabusiveness quota for the evening.<\/p>\n
The one “remembrance” that I was at was this guy who was about to drop
\nfrom cancer or some such thing. They had to wheel him around so he
\ncould go talk to all the woman who never loved him when he was whole.
\nEveryone put his or her name on a rock and made this lovely rock garden
\nout on the manicured lawn, most of which is still there five years
\nlater. The groundskeeper at the time had a few choice words about that.
\nOf course, he’s the same guy who drunkenly mowed down the sapling
\nplanted by a young couple on their wedding day.<\/p>\n
“May our love last as long as this tree.”<\/p>\n
A year, folks. Then a groundskeeper twisted on rum at 8am tore it to pieces.<\/p>\n
The other “remembrance” was for a friend of the then bossman. Everyone
\nwore black armbands and, sadly, I was forced to be sober on the job
\nbecause all of my immediate supervisors were there. I watched these
\npeople eulogize a man who was sitting in front of them and I couldn’t
\nhelp but wonder if he was going to keel over as soon as they were done.
\nThat’s what I would have done. Thank you, everyone, I’m – ugh! (thud).
\nIt would have been good for a laugh and, with a distraction like that,
\nmaybe I would have been able to sneak a drink or huff some glue or
\nritually scar my arm to break up the goddamn monotony.<\/p>\n
“Howard, do you remember the time in college…”<\/p>\n
“No, I don’t, Tommy. I’m fucking dead, remember? Don’t speak directly to me.”<\/p>\n
But I’m not here to talk about that! I’ve stopped celebrating my
\nbirthday, for the most part. Despite my protestations, my grandparents
\nstill go out and buy a rubbery cake from Giant Food and stick those
\ncandles in the shape of numbers in it. The candles are green and grey,
\nnow. They’ve been using them since my mom was a child. The “2” and the
\n“9” and all the others were bought nearly 50 years ago. I’m always
\npreoccupied with the “If those numbers could talk” thoughts. They’d
\nprobably say “Another goddamned grim birthday, I wish Nacho would douse
\nus in rum and torch us.”<\/p>\n
This birthday, I’ll be away on vacation. This happened once before, in
\n2000, when I attempted to avoid my birthday by flying down to New
\nOrleans. My grandmother, insisting that we had to celebrate the
\noccasion, forced us all to have a party on April 30th.<\/p>\n
Now, I can’t say I would mind having a birthday party — or any sort of
\ncelebration — with my family. The big problem is that it feels like
\nthose “remembrances.” This grim silence settles over the room, a
\nmumbled “another year down” (or, more popularly, “another year closer”)
\nover the inedible heavy sugar cake, and a heapload of presents — 80%
\nof them knick knacks and 20% fulfilling the Wish List we’re all forced
\nto hand in a month before any gift giving event. The list is filled to
\nthe letter, and every item on it is often the source of complaints
\nwhile you open them.<\/p>\n
“You and DVD’s! They’re impossible to find!”<\/p>\n
“Now, your grandfather had to go to 10 bookstores in Baltimore and
\nWashington to find that title — YOU’D BETTER READ IT AND ENJOY IT!!”<\/p>\n
“We looked all over for that DVD but we couldn’t find it, so here’s the video.”<\/p>\n
“We had to special order those Johnny Cash CD’s. They’re on the way,
\nbut they won’t be here for another three weeks. That’s the receipt from
\nthe special order. Hang on to that and you can pick up the CD’s when
\nthey’re delivered to the special DD-Plus Shipping Depot down in Howard
\nCounty.”<\/p>\n
The knick-knacks were fun when I was a kid but, 29 years later, and
\nwith three yearly gift-giving occasions, I start to see duplicates. I
\nhave shelves full of wind-up, sparking nuns, talking parrots, flying
\npigs, girlish glitter pens, penny snatchers and whirling UFO’s. I have
\ngrowling Godzillas, punching puppets and cola can race cars. I have
\nleaping frogs, ooey-gooey space slime and singing lizards.<\/p>\n
The knick-knacks, inexplicably, are ordered through the mail or the
\nInternet. Why the books, DVD’s and CD’s are not, I’ll never understand.<\/p>\n
It’s the attitude that gets me. I feel as if the cake should be black.
\nAs if, at any moment, family members will stand on their chairs and
\ntalk about me. “I remember the time Nacho called me at 2am and
\ntearfully talked about Jennifer, then he said he had to go because the
\npolice sergeant was about to hang up the phone. I’ll miss him dearly!”<\/p>\n
Wrapped presents are something of a thorn in my grandparent’s sides.
\nThe wrapping paper must be disposed of immediately. For birthdays and
\nEaster, we can pile the wrapping paper in our own discrete corner. For
\nChristmas, my grandfather hovers over us with a giant garbage bag,
\nsnatching the paper as soon as it’s free and jamming it into the bag.
\nThe tree will be down before the trash men even come to pick up those
\nbags of paper the following week. Everything about Christmas is
\ndismantled and vacuumed away within days after the event. All that
\nremains is a tray of Christmas cookies, all of them with peanuts in
\nthem. I’m allergic to peanuts, but I have to nibble at the cookies
\nanyway. The allergy, you see, is “all in my head.”<\/p>\n
Birthdays have something of a rigorous schedule. Dinner (usually carry
\nout pizza for my birthday), cake, present opening, done by 6pm. Time
\nfor the news! My grandparents leave the table, grunting and
\ncomplaining, and sit down to the prime time news. I gather up my loot
\nand tiptoe back to my cell, closing the door behind me. By 6:15,
\neveryone in the house is sound asleep, either because they’re old or
\nbecause they take handfuls of Prozac every hour. Even so, how anyone
\ncan sleep with three TV’s going at top volume is beyond me.<\/p>\n
Celebrations and social events aren’t big in the family. I can accept
\nthat. I feel the same way whenever I go to parties. Many of my critics
\n(read: “friends”) say that’s because my family is slightly loopy.
\nPersonally, I blame my anti-social behavior on a lifetime of retail,
\ncustomer service and dealings with my “friends” (read: people who
\nconstantly point out any irreparable flaws) .<\/p>\n
What I don’t understand is the need to celebrate events if they make
\nyou uncomfortable. So what if there’s no Christmas at my house, or no
\nbirthdays? I think my grandparents need to have celebrations only
\nbecause everyone else does. It’s the rare acknowledgement that our
\nfamily is vaguely unhealthy.<\/p>\n
Of course, none of this even begins to address my own deep-seated fears
\nas I turn 29. That’s the worst part. The “remembrance” style party
\nblends with my own troubled heart. 29 and what do I have to show for
\nit? Well, a lot, really… But my goal was to have a statue that urinates
\nchampagne and huge parties where women like Catherine Zeta-Jones throw
\nthemselves at me, breathlessly clawing at my belt buckle and muttering
\nincoherently about hair-raising sexual activities.<\/p>\n
When I was 19, I pictured myself as a producer for TV and film. I had
\nall that worked out. I even daydreamed my ultimate downfall and an
\nassassination attempt. Of course, I worked that out while I spent the
\nsummer planting azalea bushes and digging a pond. I certainly didn’t
\npicture myself as an office fuck with no prospects and, worse, no
\nparticular desire to pursue a career.<\/p>\n
My current goals involve rebuilding the Lego town set I had when I was
\na kid and writing Magnum PI fan fiction. It’s not that I’ve lost
\nambition, it’s just that I hate working. If I were writing jack off
\nnovels all day, that would be fine. Detective Fuzzbucket, his talking
\ncat and his crime-solving parakeet. 250 pages a pop, a new story every
\nsix months. Pow, pow, pow!<\/p>\n
All the lonely housewives at Wal-Mart would pick up the latest book
\nwhile they were checking out. They would come to my 11am readings at
\nthe local Mystery Fucks Bookstore where I would show up drunk and,
\ninevitably, coerce 14 housewives to participate in a vicious, degrading
\ncocaine orgy.<\/p>\n
I would also like to be a schoolteacher at the college level. History.
\nThen I could go get employed at some crappy liberal arts school with no
\nmore than 2000 kids and be the resident freaky professor, writing 180
\npage books along the lines of “Are we Descended from Vampires?” “Do
\nSpacemen Do It Best?” “To Jessica, Who Sits in the Front Row, I Want
\nYour Ass.”<\/p>\n
But, outside of that, I have no career goals. A girl once left me
\nbecause she said I wasn’t going places. I was 25 at the time, so you
\ncan imagine how I felt about that. I figured my dick was good enough to
\nkeep her around while she climbed the ladder of corporate stardom and,
\neventually, she could keep me. I could sit at home in a bathrobe and
\nwrite novels that never seem to make enough money and, in return for
\nsupporting me, I would satisfy her whenever she requested and obey all
\nof her orders. Easy enough. It’s a good plan, I think.<\/p>\n
She was the last woman I actively pursued. I’ve been vaguely
\ndissatisfied with women ever since. Not in a sexual way, mind you,
\nthough they do need to improve their methods (generally speaking). I’ve
\nbeen dissatisfied with the female mind. All the crazy girls, as you
\nadvance through life in the post college years, are weeded out.
\nDarwin’s laws apply and the patchouli-scented goth girls with deviant
\nminds and pockets full of mushrooms are either dead, married to faggots
\nor in Zoloft lockdown at some institution. Only the mealy mouthed “I
\nneed to settle down” conformists and the militant lesbians make it
\nthrough college in one piece.<\/p>\n
I never understood the need to settle down. The female capacity for
\nbeing needy, whining maggots is always shocking. Even the strongest
\nfemale minds appear to suffer from shuddering, tearful breakdowns after
\nthe sun sets. The whispered promises in the ear don’t mean anything,
\nthough. I want to be with you, so I’ll take this half of the closet and
\nthis chest and this other chest over here and these five shelves in the
\nfridge, which leaves you room here where you’re supposed to put the
\neggs. I’m doing this because I love you and we should be
\ntogether…forever…and ever…and ever. Come play with us, Danny! AHHH!
\nStay away from Room 218 if ya know what’s good for ya!<\/p>\n
Then they start the change. It never fails. You give a woman a mile and
\nshe takes a lightyear. You drink too much, Nacho. Nacho, I’ve cut out
\nthese job openings at AssFuckCo. It says right here they’re looking for
\na creative 29 year old who is willing to accept low pay, emotional
\nabuse and termination without notice on December 24th. You need to eat
\nright. You need…you need…you need…<\/p>\n
Sometimes, the changes are welcome. That’s even worse. If they see you
\ntaking to the routine, then they freak out. Now I can convince him to
\nsaw off his legs and start every day reciting this poem I wrote to
\nJesus!! And if he doesn’t, then I won’t have sex with him and I’ll
\nterrorize him emotionally and mentally! Yay! I love him!<\/p>\n
Not that all women are like that. I know there are exceptions out there.<\/p>\n
As I get older, I find myself thinking more and more of women. Not in a
\nsettling down, starting life sense…more a general, seething anger about
\nall the girls I was nice to when I should have fucked them silly for as
\nlong as possible. I turned down so much free pussy when I was young and
\nnow, at 29, pussy is never free. It comes with responsibilities. It
\ncomes with the neediness. It comes with strings attached. Instead of
\n“Fuck me in the ass whoever you are, I’m soooooo drunk!” you get “Where
\ndo you think we’re going?”<\/p>\n
I don’t know, sweetheart, I haven’t even gotten your pants off yet. If
\nI like your pussy, we’ll go till at least next week. But if you’re no
\ngood in the sack, I’m going to sell you to the Hell’s Angels.<\/p>\n
It’s not them, either. It’s me. It’s my age. I start undressing 19 year
\nold girls and they act like this. They expect me to have matured now
\nthat I’m staring down the barrel of 30 when, truth be told, I’m less
\nmature now than I was when I was 19. I had respect for people back
\nthen. I was trying to find my way in life. I said it was wrong to take
\nadvantage of women or have meaningless sex without love. I believed in
\nthings 10 years ago. Now I know the truth and I want to spend my days
\ndrunk on rum, high on pot, having lots of sex and, goddamnit,
\nrebuilding my Lego town set. There’s nothing else important out there.
\nIf I buy property, it’s going to be a lonely writer’s cabin in the
\nwoods. Retreat there on the weekends and write, tear up the
\nfloorboards, shoot at squirrels and pass out, naked, in the woods. Or
\njust hunt down Blair Witch Project kids and scream at them in a drunken
\nrage at 3am.<\/p>\n
So here I am. 29 at 2:45 PM eastern time May 10th. As you read this,
\nI’m on the road. Right now, it looks like I’ll be in the first leg of
\nmy trip up the Pacific Coast Highway. I might even stop off and get a
\nrubbery, sugar-laced cake, take it back to the hotel room and deliver a
\neulogy to myself. Nacho! I loved him so! I remember once, when we were
\nyounger, Nacho and I – What? Sorry, it’s time to clean up the table and
\nget ready for the six o’clock news. Go back to your room! AND NO
\nDRINKING!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[352],"tags":[86,353],"class_list":["post-2455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gsarchive","tag-birthday-articles","tag-gs-archive-2004-2008"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2455"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2880,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455\/revisions\/2880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}