3.21.2011

Preposterity

There's an executive decision that's been made, and I'm not talking about yet another disproportionate resource-driven slaughter of civilians that is somehow meant to illustrate how bad it is to kill civilians (I mean, duh. If they really are civilians, then why don't they just stand clear of the damned ordnance?). 


No. I'm talking about an altogether different executive decision. 


I was born on the 27th of March, 1978. I've always been fond of that date for mathematical reasons (too convoluted to explain that in this forum). And, I dunno, it's just always been my birthday, and I've liked that about it, too. As I was born in Georgia (on Tobacco Road, at Fort Gordon), my birthday was on the first Monday of an actual spring (c.f. 2011's first spring Monday, which oh-by-the-way is today, and which finds us fielding a SNOWSTORM. Losing the lottery is considerably worse than merely not winning the lottery.).


As I've grown older, and not just just for climatic reasons, the 27th of March has revealed itself to be kind-of unspecial. Barely anybody remembers my birthday, and I'm tired of pretending not to care about that. I've always felt it kind of a matter of imbalance, given how I strove to remember people's birthdays (before that awful Facebook app that very indiscreetly broadcasts your specifics to all of your friends), and have in the last decade felt the significance of knowing those dates sputter into utter trivia. That's just wrong. I mean, we really have to think about birthdays...when we people are at our bar-none most vulnerable, all covered with vernix (and maybe a dash of meconium), our functional independence completely contingent upon the promptitude of whomever will sever the funiculum; why on earth would we not want to honor that in one another? Birth both trumps and transcends dignity, even for the calculating and stodgy and cruel and administrative among us. This is the underpinning of my executive decision.


My executive decision? I am going to change my birthday. That's right. Don't fucking laugh.


This has been a subject of ample discussion between my wife and me. A January 27th person, she thrills me non-stop with her fascinating Aquarius allure, but her day falls within frozen-spit distance of the winter's purported nadir. She's of a similar mind about the need to make things different, so we decided to change together, and have coinciding birthdays. Since Molly is exactly 10 months younger than me, it seemed an obvious bridge to build.


We thought of keeping it real with our shared 27th thing and all that, but it felt sort of forced. (This reminds me that, on my 21st birthday [1999], my pal Jamie got me the autograph of VANILLA ICE! It read: To BENB  HAPPY BIRTHDAY "21" Keep it Real; this has been an enduring inspiration to me, as I figured that Vanilla Ice knows more about the importance of keeping it real than anybody.) 


I have to go to bed, as there's a lot of work that I have to do, but I will post tomorrow with not only the details of my new birthday, but also my startling exposé about the Birthday Surgeon. 

4 comments:

  1. A. I was recently working on an idea to have just one birthday for everyone, for each age of childhood. Like, all current six-year-olds (regardless of how long they've been six), will turn seven on May 1st. Then on April 15th of the following year, they all turn eight. I'm sure there are problems with this plan, but this is a side-effect of too many chuck-e-cheese type parties.

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  2. B. I LOVE your March 27th birthday just the way it is. Even if everyone else changed theirs, yours ought to stay put.

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  3. Anonymous3:55:00 PM

    A very merry un-birthday to you, Benb.

    ---Lewis

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  4. Hey! Thanks, Lewis. And, as you've seen fit (I suspect) to stay "old school," I must wish you a VERY HAPPY MARCH 24 (birthday). Love, Benb xoxoxoxo

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