Theatrical Muse Reboot - #51 - What do you want for your birthday?
Man, my birthday is a long way from now if we're only moving forward. Which, for the record, is the only manner in which I go through time, I don't know about the rest of you fancy-pants folks out there. Generally my options are to put one foot in front of the other, proverbially, or just stop moving along the great street that is time. I would really rather not take the second option, honestly. I am rather of the opinion I haven't quite finished this journey yet. Now I'm starting to sound really sappy, let's move on before this turns into a fucking episode of Oprah. Clever deployment of profanity, go!
Anyway, my birthday is March 5th. As you can clearly see by the helpful date plastered across the top of this entry, it's May. I haven't particularly given my next birthday a lot of thought because it is months and months away. It's also twenty-eight--that is, I will be twenty-eight on my next birthday--so it's also not exactly like it's one of those ridiculous and somewhat arbitrary milestones that people tend to make a big deal about. In a couple of years I am sure I will be not paying much attention to the fact that I am turning thirty and my pack will have some enormous ridiculous party with black balloons and a cake covered in stubby little candles that may or may not constitute a fire hazard. I know them. On my 30th birthday I will probably be lucky if I get away with not getting a cake with an octogenarian stripper in it. Ugh. I think I just threw up a little in my mouth. Nobody ever wants an eighty year old stripper, inside a cake or not. Gross.
Also, I'm just not very sure what I'd say even if my birthday was tomorrow. For a man who purports himself as an amateur historian, my personal anniversaries have never really meant a whole lot to me. I think this is in part because I just don't see the point in singling out one day to celebrate something that you can celebrate every day. Birthdays, for example. You celebrate them to commemorate the fact that you have clung onto the face of the planet by your fingernails for another year, made it to a date where you can happen to add one single integer to the number you trot out to show to others like a badge of honor-and-or-shame in regards to your experience and vitality. But if you think about it, once you get past a year old, every day is a similar accomplishment. Every day I wake up and roll out of bed or the hammock to face the salt air and grumble about not having enough caffeine in my system is one year of accomplishments from the last time I did something similar on the same date. Every day is a fucking triumph, especially when your life isn't exactly one of the most stable or the most safe. If I'm going to be making a big deal about having made it to the next March 5th, why not make a big deal about the next March 6th? Or March 7th? So on, and so forth. Honestly, as much as I like the idea of people being excited to see me alive and well no matter what day it is, I only have so much capacity for partying. Eventually I don't want to be toting around whiskey sours and wading my way through groupies just to get to the picked-over food table. Sometimes, honest to Mergatroid, I just want to curl up in my hammock and listen to the surf and relax.
On the other hand, I suppose that is a perfectly acceptable birthday celebration too. I don't think most of the things I could account for wanting for my birthday are material. I have a funny relationship with material things. I wouldn't go so far as to claim they don't have any significance or importance to me--certainly I have my objects I am needlessly sentimental about and even more certainly I have my objects I'm just unwilling to make the sacrifice to do without--but I am in a position in life where I can more or less always just go and get whatever I think I want without having to scrimp or save or plan. So maybe a greater gift for me would be to be able to have a quiet day. Sit. Relax. Hang with my family. For a few hours just be MARTIN rather than The Rock Star or The Alpha. THAT would be nice.