26 July 2002

Hey, Mary Anne! Happy our birthday!

Hey, everybody else! Happy my birthday!

As I was telling Sarah this morning, when somebody says, "Merry Christmas!" to you, you can say, "Merry Christmas!" right back. (Or you can reply with a winter holiday you do celebrate if you don't celebrate Christmas.) But "happy birthday" doesn't have the same reciprocity. So sometimes I've been saying "thanks!" and sometimes "Happy my birthday!" Because I want them to have a happy one, too. Just because it isn't their birthday, that shouldn't matter.

My grandma and grandpa called at 7:50 this morning -- "Happy birthday, Rissy! Are you up and around?" Well, they knew I'd be up. "Around" is still a matter of opinion -- I'm wearing my pajamas and admiring my presents, which I have already opened. Well, the ones that are here. And in the house. More on which in a moment. My Onie called, too, just a minute ago, and I have many e-mails. Many. I owed people e-mails to begin with -- interesting people writing about interesting things, and I just didn't get around to answering them yet. It may be a few days. I have a bit going on, and I also have the urge to play with my new stuff. I have a new Leatherman and a new Waterman. I have new clothes (photos to follow if they fit). I have new books and new CDs. I have more memory for my camera. Wheee! I love birthdays. They're so much fun. I think the universe wants me to listen to the Barenaked Ladies CD first, because it was the only one for which the plastic and sticky stuff came off immediately and with little effort. So I'm singing along with "Born On a Pirate Ship."

I believe I have two dozen presents for my two dozenth birthday. Maybe more, but definitely two dozen. Some of them will be late...and one is still out in the mailbox. Why don't I go get it? Because the mailbeing, in his finite wisdom, wedged it in there so firmly that I can't. He has the ability to open the entire front of the mailbox set. Even so, he ripped the cover of one of our magazines and crumpled one of my rejection letters to get it in there. And I cannot get it out. Believe me, I have tried. So Stephanie the office lady is going with him today to fetch it out, when he comes, since the office people can't open the mailboxes themselves (it's illegal). The crazy thing is, the mailbeing had to come to the door to deliver Scott and Michelle's box anyway, so it would have taken him exactly no more effort.

My parents' friend who is a mailbeing always says that they don't put thinking in his contractual obligations. I guess not.

And I can't see who it's from, so it's driving me absolutely mad, because I love birthday presents...anyway, it's only a few hours more, and I will know who it's from and what it is. Only a few hours more.

Squirm.

I also got a new word and a fun fact as birthday presents, and I think that's a very cool sort of thing for people who haven't met me in person to give me. Very nifty.

Also, Evan sent me to this page, which may not have anything to do with my birthday, but it's fun. Comes up with random crime-fighting duos. The one Evan liked best had a character that corresponded pretty well with one of my main characters (in "From the Hip Flask" and related unfinished stories). That was kind of freaky...but it might be a fun exercise for a writing group, picking characters from the "They Fight Crime!" generator.

I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do today. I have new music to listen to for sure, new books to read (over the course of several days), a new pen to try out...it'll be fun, though, and the house smells of flour and sugar and cocoa, because in addition to my birthday cake, I made cocoa-chocolate chip-cherry scones. I can have a scone or some birthday cake whenever I want. It's my birthday. I'm going to get garlic in vast quantities tonight. And Scott has instructed me to get my party on.

How could I disobey that kind of an order?