it's my birthday!
(except that’s a lie)
All day long I’ve been in receipt of a slow burbling stream of birthday messages. Thoughtful little missives from people I know well or barely know or have recently gotten to know or don’t know at all.
The sort of people who send birthday messages, who make a point of it, I’ve decided, are the kindest sort of people. Although I am not one of them, perhaps because I am not one of them, I appreciate it all the more. Birthday messages, like birthday cards and gifts and parties and songs and tiny wax candlesticks stuck into cakes are just… lovely. They are pure and sweet and good. The epitome of thoughtful, a comforting reminder of the goodness of humanity in all its remote and tangential forms. And this is especially true for me — today of all days! — because it is not actually my birthday. My birthday was five days ago. Yes, that’s correct. It’s the truth.
Try telling that to Wikipedia though. Just try it. I dare you. Trust me, I have, many times. They won’t amend it. Whatever. It’s done.