Birthdaze

I'm awake. I'm back awake now. I just needed some rest.

When did birthdays become marathon events, beginning days (why? to commemorate the onset of labor?) before the anniversary of the actual parturitional "pop" and lasting the presumed length of momma's confinement? Is this an individual thing? Brand new or old? Local or widespread? I mean, my friend Lester's been doing it for years, and I thought it was a good idea when I tried it out on myself some time back. But nobody went for it as far as I was concerned, so I've let it ride since then.

Bobby, however, did it this year, and did it intensely.

It began last Wednesday, two days before the actual date, with dinner with friends out on Bayou Saint John. Bobby supplied the steaks and ribs for a barbecue. Doctor Shep supplied the salad, potatoes au gratin, and mushrooms. It was delicious and way too much food to digest. We were made to bring home what we couldn't finish eating that night, plus the remainder of what hadn't been touched. Thus we had a second day to consume what had left me feeling sick and bloated the night before.

Thursday night marked the inaugural Ringo game at out local neighborhood tavern. What's "Ringo", you wonder? Well, it's something you can't legally call Bingo. I don't know why. There are so many Byzantine laws between this city and this state that most of us just try to keep our heads down and our eyes focused forward whenever we venture out of our homes, which are probably not as safe a haven as we are wont to believe.

Forgive my querulousness, let's continue with the Bobby saga. Thursday, he played Ringo.

Friday, I wished him a happy birthday and gave him the two belts he'd wanted that I'd bought for him; and it's in trying to remember Friday that I begin to forget what else we did and the timetable we followed. I know that on that Friday, Friday night, and Saturday, there were people around. There were always all these people around.

By Sunday, I was giddy and off-balance, but Bobby wasn't done. Sunday was to end with dinner at Mandina's as guests of Doctor Shep and Lester once again. I told him this was a wonderful idea and a sweet gesture on our friends' part, but surely he didn't need me to be there with him for that, did he?

Yes, he did.

So there I was, knocking back martinis and waiting for the shrimp and oyster platter that would help to cement my veins and arteries. Eventually, like the Wednesday before, we were made to bring home what we couldn't finish eating that night.

By Monday night, I had decided that for my own upcoming birthday, I would ask someone of our friends to take Bobby away for a week, out of town somewhere far away. I would like to have a few days to myself to imagine a return, as it were, to my mother's womb, to succumb to a solitude and security of a pre-conscious state of not knowing, not needing, not anything.

Don't get me wrong. I still want cards and gifts and calls and all. I just don't want to have to do what I don't want to do, when I don't want to do it, in crowds I don't want to be surrounded by unless I'm ready to be.

I want it be be my way. Is that so much to ask?