Older.

I like receiving birthday cards. Yesterday I got five cards from friends and family.

I've actually kept every single card (and letter) I've received for birthdays, holidays, and special events, since my late teens or early twenties. It's amounted to a couple of shoe boxes worth of paper, and that's still less volume than the number of comic books I have stored away at my parents' house from when I was a teenage collector. But unlike comics, which really only have value in my thinking that one day they'll be worth money, a card has a personality attached to it. Getting one is a nice little token of someone thinking about you, and even if they aren't particularly such a close friend, the card and the respective giver is usually attached to some part of your life that was important in one way or another. A few years ago I flipped through some of the cards in the boxes and came across a Christmas card with a name on it that I didn't immediately recognize. It came to me hours later: she was one of five Americans and Canadians that I lived with in London in December of 1991. She was from Montana, I remember, and was a very positive, cheery girl. I only lived with those folks for about a month, in a basement flat in West Kensington, but it was amazing the rich memories that were triggered by just looking at a name on a card. Letters, of course, are even more personal, but it's been years since I received one, and I don't keep e-mails in the same way.

I have no doubt that I'll feel the same way about the names on the cards I look at in a few years... the days with that New York running club, the Canadians in NYC, and my friends from Jersey. Remembering my Birthday at the Beer Garden in Queens, trying to stay out until midnight to celebrate my real birthday with the last few that hung on that long.

And I did, just barely, and then headed out with them at 12:20 AM. One day it'll all be just a good memory.

* * *

And with that, I feel like I'm finally done with the Beer Garden. It's gotten too trendy, too crowded, and the waiting-in-line thing in order to sit casually outside with a beer is just too much for me. I actually felt sorry that I picked the place, with some friends waiting for an hour to get in. That's a pretty selfish way to spend a birthday. I need a new favourite place to enjoy a cool one with friends.

Today, the 15th, was my actual birthday. It's also National Ice Cream Day, FYI, so really, can it get any better than that?!

Anyway, amazingly, I was up at 8:45 AM. I felt tired though, so after sending a few e-mails and doing a few minor chores, I went back to bed for another hour and a half. I got the Mom and Dad call at noon, right on schedule, and we chatted for almost 20 minutes, which is longer than usual. I got a few more birthday e-mails and online greetings and send a thank you to my friends for coming out last night, and an apology to the ones for whom the wait was too much. From there I headed down to Union Square. I treated myself to a little b-day late-lunch at a diner and headed into work for a few hours, and then back uptown to do some grocery shopping before heading home.

I was supposed to get together with a friend for dinner, but he left me a message saying he couldn't make it and would have to give me a rain check.

So that's basically my birthday. Quiet and solo, but that's okay. Actually, that's pretty representative of my life, so it seems to be a fitting way to spend the day.

I'll end it, though, on a more adventurous note: a couple of friends and a movie. That would be me, Sam Adams, and Jason Bourne. And ice cream, of course.

Happy Birthday to me.