Arthur: Another year down

Today's my birthday.

I'm not quite sure what to do with that. 'Lyn seems to be working this afternoon, otherwise I'd insist she take me to Finale or some other place that serves delicious and fattening desserts. I can do that - in a few weeks, the Inn will reshape my body and if Liz has to deal with a couple extra pounds, it's a small price to pay for my having to deal with a couple boyfriends.

I thought about calling Jeremy, but to what end? To wish him a happy birthday? Doesn't mean anything to him. Getting someone to acknowledge that today's My Special Day? That's kind of petty and would make me sound like an eight-year-old.

The whole birthday tradition is kind of silly, I guess, but it's useful. We've got other days that we can use as benchmarks for how our lives have changed since the last time they came around, or what we want to do by the next one. I'm spending this one looking at a life interrupted, my life exchanged for another for about nine months. One thing's for sure, I've done stuff this year that I never would have expected to a year ago.

Although, I'm glad that I'll miss Elizabeth's birthday in June. Ray probably would have thrown a surprise party, and it would have been another day spent with Liz's family, who are nice folks but every minute I spend with them is a reminder that I'm experiencing something that should rightfully be hers.

At least it should be relatively quiet at work. Even though there are some good movies opening, the Red Sox are playing the Yankees this weekend. I haven't really had a chance to see it for myself, but apparently the city comes pretty close to shutting down when that happens, or so the folks at work say. Bostonians really love their baseball, and hate the Yankees. It doesn't really surprise me - even out west, you can tell the Red Sox fans are serious; sometimes it seemd that every time I went to an A's game against Boston, the transplanted New Englanders outnumbered the folks rooting for the home team... Especially for the last year or two, as a bunch of fans jumped on the bandwagon after the 2004 World Series (just like with the Yankees, but don't tell anybody here that!).

Hopefully not too quiet, though - Ray and I saw the run-off of Hot Fuzz last night, and it's some funny stuff, well worth seeing if you can sneak it in around your baseball. Not that inviting Ray along was necessarily the brightest idea; he enjoyed the movie but Stewart was also there, and he starts making noises about how I'm apparently rubbing something in his face while Ray's in the men's room. I say that's silly, and maybe it's karmic balance for any smugness he might have felt the times when Ray came to see a movie and didn't know Liz was sleeping with her boss. Then Ray comes out and asks if I'm being bothered.

Honestly, I hope they both feel kind of stupid right now. They should, since most times I did the peacock thing, spreading out the tail to impress a girl and maybe scare another guy away, I tended to feel like a prize jackass the next day (of course, mostly when I lost). I know some girls find guys fighting over them a turn-on, but it made me feel very uncomfortable. Then again, maybe that means most girls really don't like it, but us guys rationalize that they do because that means we were manipulated into doing something stupid rather than just being stupid.

Heh. I guess that's something I didn't know last birthday.

-Art

P.S. Yes, I am absolutely stopping at Finale before or after work. I'll have my own private little birthday cake, even if there's no candle.