Snufkina, Mike, and Princess save the day

I know there's some interest in how I am going to write about my birthday. At least, I know I'm curious, and the two of you who were there for the piece de resistance that capped off the single worst birthday I have ever spent certainly seemed curious. Speaking of which, Mike, I'm so sorry about all that howling I did in your car after unexpectedly seeing the man I'd been stressing out about all day, for the first time since we broke up all those months ago. In the company of the one person I have good reason to believe hates my guts (versus all those people who probably just hate some smaller part of me, like my Islet of Langerhans, say, or my tragus, or perhaps the tiny bones in my ears.) Please tell your lovely wife that I am not usually quite so much of a freak. Ahem.

But I find that the whole fiasco of the day just begs to be written in a very specific and humorous way that requires more energy than I have right now. Also, I am still vaguely hung over from all that vodka (two shots! Watch out, I'm a lush!) and I just worked a Christmas party where I ate too many desserts and I am exhausted.

So I'll say this. For now. The day started badly and promised to end worse, but thankfully Snufkina was with me for the last several hours--even if she couldn't prevent me from accidentally cutting myself with my own fingernail, fercryinoutloud--and she brought flowers and cookies and a big warm heart. And after Mike had dropped us off at Dalva, Princess came out to meet us, bearing gifts (including the one for last year's birthday) and looking cute in his little round glasses. The two of them, who hadn't met before, hit it off instantly, and then we slid past the bouncer who had offered to give me my birthday spankings and went to another bar where Snufkina's honey tried to refine my pool-playing technique (did I mention that I won? But only because he scratched on the 8. Although I'd been holding my own up until that point) and their friend the doorman fed me quarters so I could kill plenty of nasty Area 51 aliens. Area 51, one of the most fabulous ways to waste quarters ever invented, and the only video game I can say I'm any good at. Now that it's so hard to find a Joust machine anywhere. Anyway, I am currently number 6 on the highscore list at Bender's.

So that would be Sergeant Major Indri to you, soldier. At one point I was up to 65% accuracy!--astonishing. I have learned several useful things. One, I am a better shooter drunk than sober. Two, the edges of my ears turn red and get very hot under those same circumstances, but not necessarily both ears. At one rather disorienting moment, a whole bunch of drunk people seemed to be squeezing my ears to ascertain which was the hottest. Finally we all dispersed, and Snufkina and her snortling, warfling, wrinkly pups walked me home and made sure I got my key in the door properly and so on.

Some theater people believe that a bad dress rehearsal presages an awesome opening night. So I'm telling myself that my birthday was the dress rehearsal for the year. I really hope my thirty-fifth year is a little better than the couple preceding it... although I recognize that I've had some wonderful things happen, and I've done some things I'm happy about, it just seems like I've had enough grief for a while. I could use some good news. Like, oh, my father's cancer going into remission for a dozen years. My soulmate finally getting on the right bus and showing up. A huge apartment with cheap rent and decent water pressure. Getting chosen for Brazil would be nice right about now (and I should know by Monday, eek.) Like that. One truly good thing that doesn't flippin' melt away on me.

Something I wanted to write about sooner, but got distracted. The other night I was burning my very first CD, music for modeling, and the first track I put on was Zoltan somebody and his gypsy orchestra doing "Dark Eyes", which is of course Hungarian (and which I believe the Elvises have covered), and of course there's that wonderful, sad movie by the same title with Marcello Mastroianni. I really like this song, and (having dark eyes myself) have started to identify with it. So anyway, a day later, I was coming home late from class, and as the escalator at the 24th Street BART station pulled up even with the main level I heard familiar music... and there were three guys playing the same song, on mandolin, violin, and guitar. What are the chances of that? As I was heading up out of the station into the rainy evening, I turned back to look, and a young man in a light blue raincoat and dark blue backpack was spinning ecstatically to the music, his backpack bouncing.

I used to think it would be really cool if every person had their own musician walking around behind them, playing their theme music. This was a lot like that.

This is a truly amazing city.