1) There’s a very good reason why people don’t normally give housewarming birthday wakes. Wakewarming days. Birthwakewarmings? Birthhousewakes? Anyway — I recommend that you keep your occasions politely separated. It’s too confusing otherwise. Plus, it’s just odd to take a condolence card and and a birthday card to the same occasion.
2) One of the nice contradictory things about me is that although I’m mildly OCD, I don’t mind toast crumbs in bed. This makes for pleasant mornings with Someone.
3) If you want to do something entirely unnatural with your air supply and end up maybe accidentally killing yourself, I highly recommend sneezing in the middle of a hiccuping fit. Not that you can really schedule this kind of thing, mind you, but trust me, it’s memorable.
4) Thank you, Jackie, for sending me those issues of “Opera News.” I had a moment of nostalgia for the bad old days back at Oberlin, when I would look forward with pitiable excitement to each month’s issue. I had a little ritual involving a bagel and coffee, and my magazine. That was when I still had some vestige of youthful dreams; I thought that perhaps someday I might write for that magazine. Now I am cynical and have invested in the idea of premature death as a retirement plan. So … yeah. Thanks for that, Jax.
5) The thing about weeds is that they grow back.
6) It just occurred to me today that my crazy aunt in California, who has now been diagnosed with Stage 4 Alzheimer’s, looked astonishingly like the young Barbara Stanwyck, back in her heyday. I’ve been trying to figure out for years who she reminded me of. My aunt had a better figure, but the face was extremely similar. And, like Stanny, she was a head-turning stunner in a slightly off-kilter way. Like this:
7) I turned 37 last week, but I’ve been thinking of myself as 40 for so long that I really didn’t notice. In fact, I was agreeably surprised to realize that I’m not 40 yet. I wonder whether I’ll care when I really do turn 40. My guess would be no, not really. I certainly didn’t give two shits when I turned 30, though I’d been told that I would bid a gut-wrenching farewell to the carefree bachelor joys of my twenties. That’s the up side to never having a youth … you don’t miss it when it’s over.
8 – Professional used book dealers have a characteristic appearance of papery oddness, lack of exposure to sunlight, dustiness, and social ineptitude. They are an odd group, with questionable teeth, and hair that appears to have been carelessly affixed with mucilage. I’m not sure that their clothing is made of substances found in nature.
9) Lawyers make curiously docile real estate clients, though you’d never guess at such a thing.
10) I own a small brass paperweight in the shape of an armadillo. So there.
June 14, 2009 at 10:38 pm |
Dear David,
Happy birthday.
You wished it to me, so it is nice to be able to do it back to you. Hope it wasn’t unwanted.
Kate
June 15, 2009 at 7:49 am |
Thank you, Kate. Of course your well-wishes are always welcome.
June 14, 2009 at 11:21 pm |
1) I can’t imagine that even one of those 1920’s social etiquette guides would have a chapter covering such an unnatural gathering, which should be a reliable guide to the fact that they should not exist.
2) I have skin like the Princess from the story with the pea in the bed. So I mind.
3) Duly noted.
4) I’ve just realised that I am, in fact, doing pretty much the kind of job I would have dreamt of doing had I been able to imagine it when I was at university.
5) Yes, nothing short of a nuclear strike will rid you of some of them.
6) Can you imagine how long it must have taken to do her hair like that every day?
7) Happy birthday dear chap. I hope you had a lovely cake?
9) Until something goes wrong, presumably; at which point they sue your arse off.
10) Where did you get it?
June 15, 2009 at 7:51 am |
10) My mother gave it to me, about thirty years ago.
smiley sunglasses) Thanks! It’s not a word I get to use often.
4) I am consumed with unbecoming envy.
6) Boggles the mind, doesn’t it?
June 14, 2009 at 11:22 pm |
Ha! look how the point 8 came out.
Oh, such larks…
June 14, 2009 at 11:58 pm |
I would be careful of any lawyers as real estate clients, especially the docile ones.
I have a small brass alligator stapler. So there.
June 15, 2009 at 7:52 am |
Wanna trade?
June 15, 2009 at 1:30 am |
Hilarious as always. Belated happy birthday, and I’m very glad to be able to say this to you without adding -and my deepest sympathy (unless the birthday-wake was yours??). The armadillo paperweight sounds charming. And maybe you could entertain your aunt by sending her old paper clippings of Stanwyck’s glory moments (photo necessarily reprinted) with a card saying ‘I never knew you had such a daring youth!’. It strikes me as a jolly idea, but on the other hand, it may strike you as sick and offensive. Apologies if so….
June 15, 2009 at 7:53 am |
No, thank God, the birthday-wake was someone else’s.
I think my aunt would be most astonished to learn that I think she looked like Barbara Stanwyck … but in a good way, I think. If she even remembers who Barbara Stanwyck was.
June 15, 2009 at 1:32 am |
Happy birthday, David. I have now deduced that you are just three months older than me, and I don’t think I’ll give a rat’s arse about turning 40 except insofar as it means a party.
Was yours the birthday wedged in between the housewarming and wake?? I’m with you in the minimising of theme trauma. We were asked to go fancy-dress to a Sunday lunch a couple of weeks back… eight adults sitting around an outdoor table dressed like total fools… it was really unnerving. Couldn’t we just have lunch? It only reconfirmed that I really hate fancy dress.
June 15, 2009 at 7:55 am |
No, not my birthday, thankfully. If it had been, I wouldn’t have been able to leave after half an hour, which is what I ended up doing.
June 15, 2009 at 5:43 am |
Belated happy, “you’re not yet 40 after all, hooray!” birthday to you, David.
Also, I have experienced point three; my brother said I looked like a mentally ill person having a convulsion. Well, he got the first part right, anyway (ha).
Oh yes, and by the way? “That’s the up side to never having a youth … you don’t miss it when it’s over.” Good point.
June 15, 2009 at 6:06 am |
Oh, dear. Right you are about not missing nonexistent years of youth, and as for point 9… I met my late, and ex, husband in a used-book shop, and dearly as I loved him for many years, you are all too directly on target. (The shop in question was reviewed some years later in the Washington Post in a paragraph that commenced, “Full of dust and dreck…”)
June 15, 2009 at 7:56 am |
At least the opening sentence didn’t refer specifically to your ex. Although I suppose it might have been equally accurate in that sense.
June 15, 2009 at 12:39 pm
I just realized I either can’t count or can’t type, I meant point 8 of course. And it was accurate, but only eventually… the Book Market may still be there on upper Connecticut Avenue, a wonderful midden heap situated on the top floor of an old commercial building whose staircase always reminded me of The Princess and Curdie.
June 15, 2009 at 8:32 am |
1) I’ve never been to a wake.
2) I hate crumbs in bed.
3) BTDT (Been There Done That)
4) Pass
5) True; It’s kinda like the old wives tail of if you pull out one gray hair, then two will grow back. I, think it’s true of weeds, though.
6)She was a looker. Sorry she is unwell.
7)I hit a marker this year, and I wasn’t happy about it at all.
8-10
)If you say so.
June 15, 2009 at 9:35 am |
Happy Birthday. A little late.
June 15, 2009 at 1:51 pm |
I think I just read an Dickens novel, complete in one blog post and its accompanying comments.
June 15, 2009 at 1:52 pm |
an entire Dickens novel.
June 15, 2009 at 6:59 pm |
Happy birthday!
I’m not going to tell you about all the weird stuff I own because I don’t want to tarnish your high opinion of me.
June 17, 2009 at 12:47 pm |
Oh, that’s not possible, Steph.
Hmmm.
I guess you could take that a couple of different ways.
June 15, 2009 at 11:48 pm |
1) Just the thought makes my head want to ache.
2) I don’t freak out when the dogs drag mud across the kitchen floor, when they drop hair all over the carpet, or when the cat gets ticked and dampens the dog’s blanket, but my sheets must be clean.
3) Ouch!
4) Rituals involving coffee and bagels are under rated.
5) Lots of things are that way.
6) You could make her a scrap book. She’s more likely to remember her youth now than the present and probably would enjoy it.
7) Happy belated Birthday! 40 doesn’t suck, and youth is over rated.
9) Strange, you’d think they’d be jumpy and demanding.
10) In Texas one must own some such thing.
June 17, 2009 at 12:47 pm |
Oh yes — the armadillo is the Texas national bird, right?
June 15, 2009 at 11:49 pm |
Ack! My number 8 weirded out too!
June 17, 2009 at 6:53 am |
Happy Birthday!
May all your future birthdays have toast-crumb-filled beds, nongrowing weeds, and crazy, stunning aunts.
(Did the sneeze stop the hiccups?)
JD at I Do Things
June 17, 2009 at 12:50 pm |
Thank you! I too am hoping for a future birthday full of crumbs and stunted weeds.
And no, the sneeze did not stop the hiccups. It sure hurt like hell, though.
June 17, 2009 at 12:41 pm |
37, huh? That’s almost as old as my red Bonwit Teller wool blazer. You and I have something in common – we think of ourselves as 40. Only it doesn’t have quite the same effect in my case since I’m decidedly uber not. I have, however, always made it my policy to lie about my age and say I’m much older than I am. That way everyone is amazed at how well I look, and drives people my REAL age crazy. I love it. Well, afterall, everyone needs a hobby.
June 17, 2009 at 12:51 pm |
I think that driving people crazy is an excellent hobby. It’s given me many hours of pleasure.
June 17, 2009 at 1:58 pm |
I could answer point by point, but I’m supposed to be clearing some of the weeds out of the pond. They always come back, you know.
Happy birthday. Mine was last week and I have just deduced that I am old enough to be your mother.
June 17, 2009 at 2:29 pm |
I believe I am old enough to be David’s mother, too, but I believe I will occasionally dress up as Vitellio Scarpia and flirt with him anyway, in a restrained, chivalrous way of course.
June 17, 2009 at 7:18 pm |
No smart a** it’s the State Mammal. The Mocking Bird is the State Bird.
June 20, 2009 at 9:34 am |
Happy birthday, you young whippersnapper. Get off of my lawn, dammit!
Oh, my dad claims to have dated Barbara Stanwyck in her early days as a starlet. Who knows, it coulda happened. Though because of the circumstances around the telling of such tale – we were both totally drunk at my brother’s wedding – I tend to question the veracity of such bragging.
June 26, 2009 at 1:34 am |
You’re welcome! Now just sit there and await the sweet release of death. Read a copy of Opera News while you wait, if you like.