34

When do birthdays no longer become long anticipated events? When I was a kid, I would start the countdown in April. Start planning the party, figuring out who to invite, what we would do, what hints to drop for gifts.

In northern Wisconsin, there aren't a lot of options for birthdays. No Chuck E. Cheese, or Pizza City, or arcades to throw money at. Usually, my birthdays consisted of hitting the cold, cold waters of Gitche Gumee, swimming for awhile, and then heading back to our palatial rambler and overloading on cake and ice cream. My dad would grab a football and throw hail mary passes into a throng of hyperacticve 8 year old boys. Whoever caught the ball got a quarter. Dad must have thrown down half a paycheck in an hour on that game.

Now though, instead of being anticipated, birthdays are another reminder of how fucking old you're getting. It's like a reminder note from the hospital, letting you know it's time to have your colon examined. There's no joy in it anymore.

34 is sort of a strange age. Old to some people, "a pup" to others, I feel the former rather than the latter of late. Gone are the days of being up every night until the wee hours of the morning with friends at bars swilling booze and telling tales. These days, 10pm hits, and I start thinking of going to bed. I remember when my parents would watch the news and then crash at 10:30pm. How could they go to bed so early? I'd think. Now I know why. It was me and my sister. Kids beat the holy living shit out of you, physically and mentally. Don't get me wrong, it's 100% worth it, it's just A LOT of work. And it's exhausting.

With the wife and kids in Wisconsin now, I feel like a sort of emotional nomad, putting in conversational stakes with anyone that will listen. I have a sort of general malaise hanging over me right now without them here. Especially today. Normally, tonight would be tailgating before a Saint Paul Saints game with Smurfette, the kids and 9 or 10 friends, followed by me coming home and passing out in anticipation of having to work in the morning.

Tonight, however, I will be grilling with two of my closest friends, then heading out to karaoke for a couple hours before going to bed. Not that it's bad. It's great. But they're not family. There were no cries of "Happy Birthday!!" from little voices this morning. No jumping on the bed or singing, more excited than I am that it's my birthday. Smurfette did call on her way to work this morning to wish me a happy birthday, but it's not the same.

Damn, I sound like a crabby old man. I should just put on a dress, a pair of tits and some antlers, and listen to some old sad bastard music. Sheesh. Sorry. Birthdays rule!

I did get a nice pre-birthday gift on the poker scene last night, as both the .05/.10 table I played for awhile and the .02/.04 table I played with Parx later on seemed to want to shower me with birthday gifts in advance. I ended up about $11 for the night. Yay for me.

Now that I've bored you with this whiny post, go read some real bloggers. Pauly has been crushing hard with his Born to Gamble series, and Drizz has a great, well written post about facing the challenges of ambition and physical limitations.

OK, I'm 34. It's 8:45am. Time to get drunk.

Oh, and if you want to give me a present, click that Titan link to your right, sign up and throw a $20 into your account. I'll thank you, and you'll thank me once you've played there. Sooo soft.