Monday, July 24, 2006

38 Laps I know there's a certain age when you're not supposed to care about your birthday anymore. I think George Carlin pegged it at five. I don't feel the same way. Granted, you shouldn't expect the big party hats and candled cake type of bash you had as a kid. But to hope the day slips away unnoticed, unmarked, unreflected upon doesn't seem right. Even though you didn't have much to do with it, it's the biggest day of your life, without which everything that follows would not have come to be. Birthdays are universal. We all have one. We can all celebrate them. And I do mean celebrate. I've never understood people who hate them. Whether you spend it looking forward or looking back it's a good point to just think about life. The whole spectrum of what was, what is and what might be. At the very least, it's an opportunity to get together with friends and family and have a meal, a drink and some of mom's cherry cheesecake, which, since childhood, I've always taken over birthday cake. I guess you could sum it up as a preference for presence over presents. Which, over time, proves to be the most valuable gift of all. With the wind-up Evel Knievell Super Stunt Set I got for my sixth birthday coming in a close second. So how did I spend this day, the completion of my thirty-seventh lap around the sun, my one and only thirty-eighth birthday: Sang along to Van Morrison's 'Linden Arden Stole the Highlights' in my car, where, when I'm alone, I have an amazing voice. The way he sings "morning sun and whiskey flowed like water in his veins" is distilled, oak-aged poetry. Took Caribou up on their free offer for the drink of my choice. Watched the sun and the city's populace wake up while tapping out a few pages of a book. It won't say too much about it other than it takes place in Scotland. Laughed my pants wet listening to a Monty Python sketch CD with my ex-wife who still knows just the perfect gifts to get for me. While researching islomaniacs, I rediscovered this Thoreau quote: "A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone." Was taken out for a burger and pint by my good friend and oft-time art director, Chilly Willy, my heterosexual creative life partner. A term he created to stop eyebrows from raising during conversations like this: "Hey, this is Scott, my partner. I mean my creative partner. I mean for special creative projects. Like for work. You see, in advertising an art director and a writer...hey, how about them Twins." Played softball with a team that's been in my family for three generations. We snuck out two victories to win the city championship. Sweaty and dusty and grinning from ear to ear we replayed the highlights over cold beer and hot wings. Everyone laughed like they were ten years younger. Took a long, much needed shower and made love to a beautiful young woman in the cool breeze of a window fan. Savored the stars and a dram of 25-year old Laphroaig. Contemplated life, the universe and everything. Felt the twinge of a tweaked hamstring and giggled out loud over the softball championship again. In many ways a typical day, yet a day like no other. At least one that will never exist again. Which kind of makes every day a birthday of sorts. It's past midnight now. Here's to being 38 1/365th years old. 10:25:38 AM    Say it don't spray it... []

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