Just for the record, it's not really March 7 anymore. (And, just for the record, I'm honestly not sure whether "anymore" should, in fact, read with a space, i.e. "any more," or rather without, i.e. "anymore": typographic suggestions should be sent to smartass@bastard.net.)

Regardless, it was, on March 7, this date not quite halfway ("half-way"?) through the month to the Ides, that I celebrated my not-quite-30-th-bir-th-day, with attendants.

The attendants on this monumental occasion were mostly new to me. Hence, they didn't know the birthday rules. I had to describe to them that

1. there are in fact birthday rules, and that these consist of
2. the birthday celebrant may ("might"?) say anything that he/she/it wishes ("wants"?), and that these things spoken shall ("will"?) be without consequence in the non-birthday world, be that consequence negative or positive ("whether that consequence be negative or positive"?)
3. the birthday celebrant drinks for free
4. the birthday celebrant will recount his/her/its past year's significant events
5. upon each recounting, attendants will cheer
6. after cheering, each attendant will, if able, recount a similar experience within the previous birthday-year. Following the recount, there will be a cheer. (This step makes those not celebrating their birthdays feel included somehow. It also makes the birthday celebrant feel as if he/she/it ain't dis-cluding the rest of the world. It also gets aforementioned birthday celebrant in a real good mood that helps him/her/it to forget, what with all the cheering, how old he/she/it is.)
   1. "cheering" is defined as a vocalized sentimental statement followed by the intentional clinking of adult-beverage-containing glasses followed by the consumption of aforementioned adult-beverages on the part of all clinkers as well as those that have shared the sentiment
   2. "sentimental" in the above definition is defined as anything that would bring a happy tear to our mothers' eye ("s")
7. following the birthday celebrant's recount of the past year's events, there will be a forecast of the next year. All attendants will propose a cheer (defined above) for the next year.

Unfortunately, your favorite smartass wasn't quite able to communicate the importance and reverent observation of the complete birthday rules to all attendants. We blame this on the attendants' observation of rule 3 above.

They (the attendants) were new. We cannot blame them.

Regardless, it should be known that, despite the marvelous efforts of many attendants, I was not satisfied with the festivities. There was no attempt at a comprehensive review of the past year, no heartfelt wishes for the next, and these problems should be remedied here...

And so we begin...

In the past year:

1. I have not thought about clowns to nearly the extent that I did in the previous year
2. I have left my home, Chattanooga
3. I have met many new and wonderful people, including epistemologists, educators, and everything in-between
4. I have quit smoking (and thus extended the number of times I get to celebrate my birthday in the future)
5. I have had new crushes
6. I have been exposed to academic thought that I previously knew nothing about
7. I have seen many beautiful people (granted, many of them are a decade younger than me...)
8. I have been to dc, nyc, charleston, greencastle in, griffin ga, and many points along the way
9. I learned stuff about databases
10. My little sister got married!

It should be known by you, the reader, that not all things in the previous birthday-year, even locally, were positive:

1. I screwed over a couple of people for whom I cared.
2. I even didn't pay enough attention to family that was in pain
3. Of course, there was this thing that fucked with us all...
   1. In my last birthday-year, four planes went down. Two hit the World Trade Center Towers, One hit the Pentagon, and the other (may we not forget it) hit a shit-farm in the middle of nowhere, PA.
   2. On 9-11, there were reports of a fifth lost plane. These reports are now lost to us all. God rest their souls.
   3. As Americans, our civil liberties got fucked with. Somehow, without an explicit vote, it was decided that our desire to be secure/protected was somehow more important than our desire to be free. Reagan, I hope, turned over in his bedpan.
   4. It's six months later, and somehow George Jr. ain't a moron any more ("?"), somehow we have managed to keep the Persian enemy alive (much as our overpowered Greek friends managed to do some 2400 years ago, whether that dastard's name was Darius or Xerxes or Saddam Osama)
   5. Most importantly out of this subset of shit that happened: I, I, I, I was so fortunate as to lose no one in the terrorist attacks of 9-11. Nor in the West Bank. Nor in Afghanistan. Some lost. Some lost big.
   6. We mourn. Together, we mourn. For the shit we all do to each other, we mourn.
4. My grandmother died
5. suck.com died. Wednesdays will never be the same.
6. I can't go on any more ("?") with this kind of stuff. I'm tired, and I hereby invoke a corollary of the above propostion re: my privilege as birthday boy: "There can be things left unsaid."