raybear | Day of my Natal Celebration

Despite my occasional distaste for the site, I decided to use Evite for the official bday/pride party invites. But it is helpful for RSVPing purposes, and I can stalk all the folks who've viewed the site but have not responded.

Birthdays are a strange event for me. I believe my mother's original due date was June 12th or so, and when I hadn't arrived in the week after, they made an appointment for the following Wednesday to come in and induce labor, but I managed to arrive bright and early on Sunday morning. Well, I suppose it wasn't bright, but it was early -- 12:37 am on June 26th to be exact.

I don't remember that many of my birthdays. I originally planned on listing the events of numerous birthday pasts, but I just can't do it. I remember some celebration, perhaps when I turned 5 or 6 and we had a party in the backyard on the picnic table and I received Barbie and Ken Western clothes, and thinking back Ken's outfit was a total leatherman outfit, complete with pleather black pants and rubber boots.

For my 7th birthday I had my dresser moved. That's what the moving guy teased me about. It was the day our furniture arrived in the house in Atlanta, and the only gift I can recall is a rabbit my grandfather that was either strawberry scented or was wrapped in fruity smelling paper. My parents took me to Toys R Us to pick out a bday gift, which was such a rare indulgent activity for them to do. I picked out a large Playmobil set that had cowboys and horses and a covered wagon. And a well.

The following year I think my birthday was held at McDonald's and I received a book that I already owned which surprised and delighted me because of the sheer coincidence (it was not a popular book, but rather some graphic version of The Prince and the Pauper), but my mother quickly gave me the lesson of proper etiquette when receiving an item you already own.

The rest of my elementary and middle school birthday parties are a blur, mostly because I had several failed parties where no one showed up, since all the school kids were on vacation during the summer or I couldn't mail as many invitations since I didn't know everyone's address. During the school year you can just hand them out to classmates, but summer birthday kids seem to be limited to inviting the few kids who's house you've actually visited or who's parents your parents know.

As I reached adolescence my parents got mad at me for not wanting to do anything special for my birthday. I was tired of the disappointment and indirect rejections from my classmates.

But high school I had more fun and spent birthdays with close friends. I don't remember college either. Except for the first summer I spent in Chicago where I went to GirlBar to partake of 5 cent shots with my buddies and ended up making out some with my friend Tim because he was paranoid that he wasn't a good kisser and he had heard I was a good one, so he wanted my opinion. He's the first guy with a beard I ever kissed.

Two years ago I had my first surprise party ever. I was overwhelmed and ecstatic. I never want one again. Ever.

Last year's birthday would have been perfect except for one notable person missing. I ended up celebrating over several days in several different styles -- everything from dinners, to club, to music bars, to free lunches.

I don't really have any birthday wishes for this year. But I'm open to suggestions.