12/7, 7:12am, 7lbs, 12 ounces
(I was always going to be a little weird)



I've been singing this in my head since yesterday. I'm pretty bratty about my birthday. I blame my mother, who always rocked a pretty awesome party for me, a tradition she managed to continue even in to my first few years of college, when she worked out a deal with my favorite coffee shop to pay for drinks and snacks for my friends and me all throughout the day. She's great like that.

The main manifestation of my brattiness (at least, I hope it's the main one!) is my refusal to work on my birthday. I'm guessing this is the last year I can get away with that (and who knows? maybe next year I'll be celebrating 29 in another country!). So even though it's dissertation crunch time, I worked my little butt off today so I can sit on my butt all day tomorrow. No plans except these: coffee, chocolate chip scones, and hours upon hours of bad tv. Culminating (because the tv gods love me) with a Librarian marathon. I am a sucker for the terrible tv movie. Even moreso when it features a geeky hero!

And, I gave myself an excellent present today - I said something very important to my brother. It came out a little like this: I just need to say that this thing happened between us, and we didn't talk for almost two years, and that really upset me, and we never dealt with it, and that upsets me, and it hurts to feel like we don't know each other, and I want to know each other, in a more genuinine way than the superficial way we seem to know each other now, and it's just important to me to say that. Practically all in one breath. It's a therapy thing. I've been putting it off, because seriously, who wouldn't? And it's not like our screwed up relationship is all better now, but I feel better now, which is what that was all about. I feel like now I can fight with him, tell him when he pisses me off, hurts my feelings, says or does something stupid or thoughtless. Because for the past 28 years I've been bottling all that crap up and then just sort of hating him. Maybe there's hope for us yet. Or, at the very least, me.