बर्थडे रैन

I'm uncomfortable celebrating my birthday. I hate being the center of attention. I don't want to go anywhere fancy or do anything splashy. That makes my birthday really boring for my friends. Jeff took me out to dinner to celebrate. Basil Thai, an old favorite. The food is good and I should probably have more than one beer to loosen up, but I'm too uptight to drink two beers. What's good about birthdays is that they squash draining daily patterns. Whenever my minds wanders off to usual misery, I'm like, hell no, it's your birthday! It's raining when we leave the restaurant and step onto Folsom Street. We think about having a drink somewhere. The Powerhouse, or the new Hole in the Wall? Both look empty. I can never decide where I want to go, and I must decide because it's my birthday. But, maybe there's just nowhere to go. What about the Bar on Church? It's quiet, too. It's cold and rainy, and Jeff is tired and we're driving around in circles. Driving in circles in the rain is nice. I want to do more of that, but I don’t say that because that's a weird thing to want to do on your birthday. The things that I don't do on my birthday are really wonderful. I don't look at craigslist. I don't participate in the pseudo-public sex occurring in the bathroom on the 4th floor of the Humanities building. I really just have to pee. Of course I linger a bit longer than necessary, but really I'm in total control. Not going to do something I regret today. I love the cold, I love the rain.