Monday, August 30, 2004

Butcher Birthday

38 years come and gone. I have sort of dropped looking at the last year and deciding whether or not to keep trying this scriptwriting thing (astute readers may remember that I embarked on this journey for real and for true on my 34th birthday in the first year of our new century). It pretty much exists on its own now, whether I want it to or not.

So for my birthday I went to see OPEN WATER, which is good but relentlessly depressing and downbeat and almost as bad a choice as saying "Let's go see the new Michael Douglas movie" during our honeymoon, which turned out to be FATAL ATTRACTION.

I pulled stumps all day Saturday and then drove to Carmel, Indiana to have dinner and drinks with some of my wife's affluent friends, with AMONG US being the after-dinner entertainment, which I was relieved to see went over well, especially after liberal applications of some of my homemade wine.

Sunday I went to dinner with my parents and got some new pants and shirts, and a bit of money, and the DVD of BIG FISH from my daughter, and a copy of the "24 Hour Comics Challenge" comic book anthology from my brother, a subtle hint for next year. Tonight we are having homemade pizza and a diabetic coma-rendering cake my wife scratch-cooked, plus whatever present she got me, as she is a stickler for giving presents on actual birthdays, preferably in the evenings, despite the fact that on her birthday I always wake up and immediately pull her present out from under the bed.

My mom was a bit late this morning in calling and telling me the story about when I was born, and how the hospital window was open and the wind came in and ruffled my hair (she slept in past the 7 a.m. time, which is okay now that she's retired). In recent years she has added the part where she bummed a cigarette off of the doctor and they smoked a cigarette afterwards. Again, this is in the Year of Our Lord 1966, for younger, alarmed readers.

And thus I go into the next year of life.

Give me a yell at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.



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