Birthdays
Tomorrow is my 32nd birthday. Hoo boy! I have no idea how I managed to get that old. I also have no idea how I’m going to celebrate it. I work tomorrow, so I’ll spend the majority of the day being very nice to other people. Come to think of it, I don’t remember the last birthday that I didn’t work. Maybe my “hoo boy” is more like a “ho hum”, or whatever the kids say these days.
But it’s not all stifled yawns and weighty sighs.
Today is my Birthday Eve, and I’m going to spend it productively, interlacing the boring chores like laundry and dishes between the fun stuff, like drawing and inking and scanning and uploading. I have a midnight deadline and a date for drinks with a friend I haven’t seen in long time. I have a lot going on.
Birthday stealer and his monkey minion.
I’m not the only one getting older, either; my nephew Blaize will celebrate his first birthday on February 3rd. That’s right, he stole my all birthday thunder last year, just by showing up. He’s lucky he’s adorable, because I normally don’t tolerate upstagers. And he’s not getting any younger.
Most of my family’s birthdays happen this week: mine, Blaize’s, and my sister Ariel just turned 18. Sheesh! It’s not that I didn’t think she’d make it this far, but she’s come so far that I could never picture what she would be like as a young adult. She’s a tough little cookie. She’s definitely a cookie. An 18-year-old cookie that likes to draw pictures.
Aside from family members also getting older, one other event always seems to coincide with my birthday, and that’s an Orchid Highway show. I don’t know if they’re doing it intentionally. They might be. They are crafty fellows. This year, they’re playing Studio 66 at the Lo-Fi Performance Gallery in exotic Seattle.
I have what you could call “a history” with these guys, and I’ve been on a few American adventures with them (most notably South By Southwest last year, where we celebrated yet another birthday in a gigantic house – it was like a special episode of The Monkees), but I don’t think I’ve actually seen them play in Seattle. I’ve seen them play Bellingham. I’ve taken a flight from Vancouver to Seattle the day after they played in Seattle. But such stars haven’t aligned for me yet. This Saturday, it might happen.
