Sappy Birthday

TAKEN FROM BLOG DATED 06/22/2006


I had a birthday a few days ago. I've never put a lot behind birthdays, mine or anyone else's. To me it's always been a day to go out, get your drink on and be relatively sure no one will hold it against you, kind of like your own personal St. Patrick's Day. I never thought of it as more than that.
I moved to Seattle in November of 2004. Thanksgiving that year was spent with a cousin and a gaggle of her friends whom I had never met before and quickly realized that, although they were all very nice people, I had absolutely nothing in common with them. Dinner parties with Bastyr students are not something to be taken lightly. Unless you're already aware of the graphic journey food takes as it passes from your mouth to your asshole, the topic of conversation may lead to your appetite being somewhat diminished, especially when the journey is being described to you in real time. It was a lonely day, to be sure. However, my social life seemed to slowly pick up after that. I met this person here, that person there and my boss at the time was gracious enough to introduce me to his circle of friends, which is now my circle of friends (I also took his job when he left for Irvine. It's kind of like Single White Female, except we're both black). Our group picked up a few people along the way. I've told friends back home that I'm lucky to have met such great people, but there was always something hollow about it, like I knew it but couldn't feel it. I'm the kind of person you need to hit with a sledgehammer before they'll sit up and take notice. I got hit the other night. One person bought me a collection of journals, because she knows how often I talk about writing and how rarely I do it. She figured she'd give me a gentle push to get the ball rolling. I walked into work to find that friends had arranged and dropped off balloons. They were pink and blue and one exclaimed "It's a boy". I don't know that anyone else in the office found it humorous, but I did. Even more humorous was the confusion it caused among my coworkers. Why does it sometimes seem that intelligence and a sense of humor are mutually exclusive? These friends of mine took me out after work. This was on a Tuesday and not only did they all show up, they came out to throw down. One had so much work to do, he couldn't stay, but he took a half-hour long bus trip to come to the bar, shake my hand and wish me a happy birthday and then left. Two of them came out from Mercer Island and ignored the fact they had to work the next day. They all had to work the next day, but they came anyways. They could have done what I would have done and just called me on the phone, but they didn't. These things touched me in a way I wasn't expecting. Not like the unexpected way a priest touches an altar boy, but more emotional and less cupping. Their gifts were thoughtful and showed that they actually knew me. The fact that they put aside whatever else they had going on so they could spend my birthday with me showed me they cared. It made me feel loved and appreciated. I knew I had met some good people but I didn't realize until Tuesday what good friends I had.