This past Friday I hadda very nice birthday day & evening, thanks to all the friends and family who sent me some of the best Happy Birthday wishes I have ever recived in my entire life - wow! I kept saying that word over and over again, so I think it's extremely fitting that I send a special Thank You to everyone out there who thought of me on that day. 45. Wow. I truly never thought I would ever live to see this birthday, like so many other people who I knew way-back-when, I thought I woulda bit-the-dust by now but thank God (in all His/Her incarnations) I'm still here. It's funny, but that's probaly one of the very few things that I have in common with one of my music idols, Ronnie Spector - I probaly look back on the summer of '83 the same exact way she looks back on the summer of '63 - wow, that was so long ago but damn Ronnie, we still gotta lotta livin' left in both of us. At least that's how I feel and I hope that wherever she is at the moment I am writing this, she feels the same way too. After all, what better attitude to have?
Right before I close a piece, in most cases a paragraph or two before the final paragraph, I'll usually discuss one of those "Hey! I learned something about all of this" angles which I feel might have enough relevance to share with my readers, but because I doubt that many folks are gonna wanna hear about what I did on my birthday (nothing fancy, just so you know), I wanna cover one of those self-realizations right now. I suppose that writing about one's birthday could be a lesson in vanity but you know me, I'm too simple to be concerned with such superflous things.
In several of my earlier pieces I've mentioned that I couldnt understand this one pattern which I keep encountering here on the internet, where people say they really REALLY wanna get to know me better and then the instant they realize that I'm justa normal, average person they become uninterested or even bored, and then they gradually fade away from me, some to the point where it's like we never even hadda conversation with each other to begin with. Personally, I think that's sad, just very sad. However, a few folks have shared with me (volutarily as well as when I have personally inquired of them) their theories regarding this pattern, such as the issue of my anonymity as well as the fact that I have no real profile pic but rather a logo. While their theories do make perfect, legitimate sense to me, I dont buy into any of that and I'll tell you why.
Point bank, my consistency. Like anyone else out there I have given myself reality checks here-n-there and I have come to this conclusion - it really is other people that are causing this pattern, not me. It's not me. The way that I talk with others, reach out to them, you name it, has not changed one single iota in all the years that I've been online. Granted, the majority of my Facebook friends dont know that about me because I've known most of them less than 1 years time, but still, that is the truth, Therefore, again, it can't be me. Logical, human reasoning dictates as well as substantiates otherwise. Consistency. Being yourself. Without those two things there is no way that you can be anything but yourself. So that's what I'm gonna continue to do - just be myself, continue to be consistent and let the chips fall where they may, as they say.
As I was saying earlier, my birthday was very nice this year, but as can be expected in life, it didnt exactly turn out the way I expected it to. Usually, wherever I am, whatever I am doing that day, if I happen to be alone I try to have my very own tiny little celebration, which generally equates to buying myself a nice little dinner (I hate cooking for one, just hate it), then either a piece of cake from the Cheesecake Factory restaurant or one of the bakeries in the North Shore area and then coming home and watching something good on tv or hanging out online, nothing too exciting by any means!
But this year was different. I was suppose to get off work early on Friday night but that was shelved when one of my co-workers called in sick so all I did that night was just come home and relax online. Saturday, a former neighbor and her family invited me over for dinner as well as to celebrate my birthday and it was very nice. She made her world-famous Lasagna which was outta this world (boy, I really oinked myself through that meal, damn) and for desert, homade Carrot Cake, decorated birthday-cake style - it was so pretty! As for the flavor, let's just say that I think my stomach actually hadda orgasm over it, regardless of whether or not that is even physically possible! It was a very nice birthday celebration and then after afterwards as we were sitting around having coffee, the big question popped outta my neighbor's mouth "So, it's your birthday, do you wanna go?" and I turned and looked at her and her niece and said "Oh, what the fuck?" So, as my friend Jed would say, I went "gambilizing" on my birthday!
It was fun and I'm not complaining guys, but that too did not go as I expected. In the first place, as much as I love playing the slots, that night was the 1st night ever that I bombed out on my birthday! No shit. Granted, I took only $27 with me but I couldn't win to save my friggin life, not even on my most favorite of machines, "9 Suns!" When you go to a casino you gotta go with the attitude that you're there to have fun and I did, but I gotta admit, it was a bit depressing not winning on my birthday this year. Last year I took a miniscule $10 and turned it into $180, thanks to "Neptune's Kingdom II." But oh well, gambliing is like everything else in life, you're always taking a chance, plain-n-simple.
Secondly, something else happened that night which taught me a lesson, a lesson I've encountered a few times before in the last several years or so, but something that really hit home Saturday night. When friends, family, or anyone, invites you to go to any casino, make sure BEFOREHAND that you establish some mutually agreeable time-frames with all parties involved. Please allow me to illustrate what happens when one doesnt do that. We arrived at Foxwoods at 7:30 p.m. and by 9:10 p.m. I was out the $27 I brought with me. However, my former neighbor was on a major winning streak (yeah, she put $21 into a "Bombay" machine and turned it into $418 by the time all was said-n-done), so guess who ended up walking around the casino and stopping at every other casino eatery for coffee most of the evening? You guessed it. We didnt leave the casino till 2:45 a.m. that morning! Yes, I did let her and the other folks we went with know that I was done gambling for the evening but when someone else invites you to go somewhere, you dont say "Okay, I'm done, let's get the hell outta Dodge" not even under those circumstances, so I just hung in there. Times like these are when I wished I did have my own car, let me tell you. When I got home, I crashed so fast I dont even remember my head hitting the pillow!
So all-in-all, I did have a pretty good birthday this year. Like with everything else in life, it certainly was better getting out and doing something with others than doing something by myself, not that I dont value solitude when I need it, but you know what I mean. Am laughing right now as I look back on what I've written in this piece cause if you attempt to read in-between the lines, one might come up with the impression that for my 45th birthday all I did was become a major loser atta casino and attempted to reflect on someone else's life (Ronnie Spector) and trust me, neither could be farther from the truth. I went to the casino with my friends to have fun and that's exactly what I did. Sure, it woulda been nice to come home with a bit of a profit but oh well, that's just the way it is sometimes. As for Ronnie Spector, please, as much as I have always enjoyed her music, let's face it, she doesnt even know who the hell I am. I guess what I'm trying to say is this - it doesnt matter who you are or how old you become, when it comes to life, just give it your best shot and roll with the punches because none of us truly knows how it's all gonna turn out in the long run anyways. Thank you for reading.
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