Sincerely And A Little Surly

B-boys in the living room, birthday phone calls, and waking up in the morning.

I woke up this morning and remembered it’s my birthday.

Here’s a dramatic reenactment of my rise-and-shine.¹ Both characters are me. Please enjoy:

The next thing I remembered this morning was the security of knowing my dad would be the first to call. I keep remembering the call’s not going to come while somehow thinking it still could.

I would like to share with you a few of my more memorable birthdays.

When I turned six a guy called Peter The Jester came to my birthday party. He had done his one-man show for us the year before but this time, when his routine was over, my friends and I jumped him in the front yard. Just a pile of shrieking, googly-eyed girls in grass stained party dresses falling into his lap, wiggling up on his shoulders in white tights and scuffed patent leather shoes, screaming DON’T GO while the little bells on his red and black fool’s hat jingled SOS.

At my fourth grade birthday party a classmate named Huckleberry kept cutting up inappropriately. He was disrupting the gift-giving portion of the afternoon so I put him in a time-out. He sat quietly at the bottom of the staircase while I ripped open my presents. At some point I told him he could come back and join us but he shook his head and stayed where he was. He did not care for any of it.

I had breakdancers at my 7th grade birthday party because it was the 80s. We planned for the crew to do some high-level breaking on our dead end suburban block but it started raining. We pushed couches, chairs, coffee and side tables against the walls and sat on the floor. These white, lanky B-boys stood still in their Adidas Superstars and tried not to laugh. The backdrop for the breakdancing battle was a mauve and beige living room with portraits of naked ladies painted by my grandmother. When the breakbeats started they were suddenly popping-and-locking and top-rocking into head spins on the hardwood floor. The sound of their parachute pants was orchestral. There was also a DJ who looked like a teenage John Travolta if John Travolta was also teenage Billy Joel. I decided to have a crush on him. He was not very comfortable at my party.

My college friends threw me a surprise party sophomore year. Mitchell Baker baked two square chocolate cakes and used silver sprinkles to draw dicks on each one. He stuck the candles into the sides of the cakes so as not to puncture the metallic penis art. The dorm room was thick with smoke and bodies. I topped off the night with vague sex. The guy drove a green BMW with a Phish bumpersticker. Can you hear the sound of the descending four-note trumpet? I bet you can.

There were good parties in high school too, and in New York during “First Adulthood,” a term thoroughly expounded on in Passages: Predictable Crises of Adult Life.

During my fourth grade birthday party a classmate named Huckleberry kept cutting up inappropriately. He was disrupting the gift-giving portion of the afternoon so I put him in a time-out.

Three years ago I decided that I didn’t want to make a thing of my birthday going forward. So I ate that whole month of September. I’d have to look up what-all I actually did because three years allows the sieve that is your brain plenty of time to embiggen, but I know I manifested the shit out of Virgo season. Quit while you’re ahead, et cetera².

I don’t dislike the fact of birthdays — because, like, what’s the alternative? The alternative is no longer being here or having never been born.

So I woke up this morning and remembered my birthday and remembered I wouldn’t get the phone call from my dad. But I can hear the call in my head. I know what he would say and how he’d say it. Sincerely and a little surly. I don’t know if the “used to” is something you get used to, or what.

I made a video on the three-years-ago birthday so I’ll end with that. Please enjoy:³

1. The Righteous Gemstones

2. There was one minor issue which I refer to as The Ratastrophe but that’s a story for some other time and also a story I may never tell at any time.

3. RIP Mabel, RIP the ability to pass for 34, RIP drinking without getting a menopausal hang over before I finish my second cocktail. We all had a good run.

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Blaise Allysen Kearsley is a writer, teacher, mentor, and the founder of the How I Learned live show and the digital magazine you’re reading right now. Thank you for that.