zen = amnesia = book = notes = type = profile = nhwc = px
43things = soma = three dog party = fotolog = host

birthday=melancholy relapse

my birthday always trips me up regardless of how healthy an emotional stride i may have hit in any given year. as a recovering melancholy-addict, my birthday without fail triggers a relapse (hallmarks of which include but are not limited to: morrissey cds on repeat in my semi-darkened room; old journals, letters and photographs spread all over my bed like a flared-up messy rash; impulsive insomna-fueled desperate telephone calls to ex-boyfriends in far-flung locales).

i had hoped this year would be different, but tonight on the eve of my 29th birthday i succumbed.

after returning from a father-centric picnic, i was feeling stir-crazy in my stuffy apartment, in my ageing body, in the confines of my life. to combat this feeling of agitation i took a hot bath with pen and paper close at hand in case i had any epiphanies worth writing down. as i sank deep into the hot water with elliott smith's melodies nudging me into that place just beyond melancholy, i had no great realizations. nothing at all became clear to me. all i could think about were preparations for the nhwc meeting/party. naked and soapy and immersed in water too hot for a summer night i composed lists:

a grocery list: buy citronella torches, a bigger can of bug spray, tofu dogs, hooch.

a to-do list: re-inflate pool, fill pool with water, wash laundry, prepare snacks, retrieve bicycle.

a to-not-do list: do not worry about everyone having a good time, do not succumb to feelings of wide-scale life-choice regret, do not mourn for those 'innocent halcyon days' that never truly existed but which you masochistically conjure like some mirage each and every birthday. [the to-not-do list is much longer than this but not worth transcribing]

because the hot bath and nag champa incense and sad music did not help me to find some greater serenity, i called up lafe and went for a walk to the divinity school. the moon's proportions tonight are so huge that i think even large burly old men might feel small and humbled by it, full of wonder like a child. it's a storybook moon and to walk under it with lafe (whom i have known since age 11 when all moons seemed amazing) was really and truly what i needed. i feel better now (as evidenced by my desire to listen to coast-to-coast am instead of elliott smith or bright eyes or the smiths or neutral milk or aimee mann or some other tear-evincing music).

yes. what i need to do is eat some animal crackers, lay down in bed with lola, and crank up the am radio. art bell and truckers calling in to report chupacabra sightings will put my petty existential woes in perspective.

happy birthday to me.

before = after