April 15 - 35

I'm 35 now.

I better be!

I was born 35 years ago.

So this better be the right age.

I went in early to work for an order that ended up being cancelled.

So I lied down in the vack (back of the van) for a celebratory birthday nap.

It was a lovely day, dipping into the 80's.

Everyone wore hypercolor T-shirts and did Howard Cosell impersonations.

Spuds McKenzie totally zooked on my Trapper Keeper. Grody!

I woke up to discover it was the afternoon.

I had some work that went somewhere I don't remember.

I do remember yelling at motorists, because they are all so stupid and not as smart as me.

I remember thinking that I was spending my birthday either sleeping in a van or yelling at people.

And I remember resisting the urge to get bummed out about it.

At 5pm I drove to the south side looking for beer and Mexican food.

I bought a 12 pack of Becks at the Jewel on Archer.

I purchased a burrito from a market with a baqueria (taqueria in the back) on 47th Street.

I returned to the van, used my two wheeler to open a beer, and enjoyed a solo birthday dinner.

This was my choice.

Afterward I fell into a 30 minute food coma.

Groggy, sweaty and 6:30, I realized I had spent the majority of my birthday asleep or alone.

So I walked twenty yards to Greg Norman's house.

With Lauren away in Tucson, and not much else going on socially in my life, I wanted to record Nurse Novels stuff on my birthday. I've always loved recording, even in its exhausting and frustrating moments. Besides, I've never been one for parties or anything normal and healthy involving groups of people.

Tonight Thea and I laid down a basic track for her ukulele ditty "Shoo Fly." Percussion included a snare case and my lunch tupperware beaten with a mallet. Then I placed vocals onto "Sea Day" and revised some of the lines in "NIMBY," particularly the one about "organtic lemonade." Tom coached from the studio couch.

Then Greg's wife Esther dimmed the lights and surprised me with a delicious birthday cake she had made from scratch! What?! She even decorated it with money signs, my favorite symbol!

$$$

Greg gave me a bottle of Manischevitz!

Tom gave me some music mixes!

Thea gave me the sniffles.

The pressure of having to have a good day on my birthday had been greatly relieved by The Normans and The Nurse Novels.

Verdict: Win