Birthday Wishes

I really just wanted to skip this one to be honest. I just wanted to pretend it wasn’t happening and make it like another day. Knowing I would never be able to really do that, even if no one else acknowledge it. Once alone in my room on the day I would surely have a sinking feeling of all my regrets.

A good friend wouldn’t let me forget that day though. She asked me several time in the days before if I was sure I didn’t want to do anything. And though I insisted she would just politely and none judgmentally just ask again days later to be sure.

Then the night before, we were sitting around after a rained out rooftop party in Bushwick and she asked once more, this time asking if there was anything I have ever really wanted to do and haven’t yet and she would research it for me.

I thought, and like anything when asked on the spot I went blank. But then one thing occurred to me. I have long wanted to go to the shooting range and have had many opportunities crap out.

My mom had gotten her gun license when I was in high school. She did it secretively, after months of sneaking out the local gun range for lesson. At the time she was working as a night auditor at a Comfort Inn off the highway and while trying to keep herself awake she would read Gun and Ammo magazines the mysteriously started getting sent the hotel. They got her thinking, and after a free intro class where she got a bull’s eye on the first shot she was hooked.

This was shocking news seeing as though my mom can’t even recognize me without her glasses when I am sitting right across the room.

Anyways, we looked online for gun ranges, which there are very few in the Manhattan/ Brooklyn area. I am kind of glad of that actually, I wouldn’t want gun enthusiast riding the subway to ranges all over New York. Not finding any pricing, we had to wait till the next morning to find out if I had to make an appointment or if I could even swing the range fee.

I woke up early that Sunday morning, before 11am even. And was sad to find out that in New York State it is illegal to fire a gun without a gun license. You may though shoot a shoot gun at the price of $55. I though about it for a minute, though it would be fun to pretend I was an unruly backwoods father of an “overactive” teenage daughter I was trying to force some unfortunate boy into marrying but $55 was too much to pay to play hill billy, so I passed.

Sad I went down to the market for b-day snow cone and on my way in I past a poster. I had forgotten all about it, today was the mermaid parade at Coney Island. I missed it last year when Javier asked me to go, cuz I was too broke to afford a train and hotdog.

As soon as Brandi was free from hot yoga and properly showered off, she biked over so we could get the train which I later realized would have been faster if I had come to her neighborhood.

Amanda has just joined our New York crew, and she was happy to meet us during a break in her ridiculously over pack schedule of dining with her random assortment of Tulane, Scad, and Columbus friends and trying to find an apartment. Her energy and drive like many of SCAD grad girl friends always makes me seem like such a slug. But a colorful slug if you will.

Coney with a mad house of half naked people roaming the streets wearing self created costumes of various sea life, topless ladies with nothing but sea shells or mesh keeping them “modest”. I saw so many ass cracks and nipples that day. We just missed the parade but a sea of nakedness covered in a rainbow of body paint still roamed to streets and boardwalk. Everything had a line, but really didn’t mind it because I love people watching and today the usually colorful crowd of Coney was even more amazing. The usual goomba Brooklyn boys were of course around but the Hasidic and older community was today run out by bare breasted sea urchins and she-male mermaids.

We got a $20 unlimited daiquiri, sat on the beach where we met up with some familiar SCAD faces whom had secured us a spot between a Mexican family making bank selling beach umbrellas and another Mexican family with a bunch of little children without proper swim wear whom were cracking me up with there full saggy diapers full of ocean. At one point one of them came close to Maggie and pulled down his bottom and peed a foot from her. It was more funny then upsetting. And when ever another came close I would go, “now don’t pee over here…no peepee”.

My ultimate goal was to see a freak show. I had been here once before on the off season but I was too broke to do much more then roam the boardwalk. It was a good show, not great but fun to experience.

The ringmaster was agreed by me and Brandi too be very sexy in a creepy lanky mischievous way. Kind of reminded me of a guy we knew at SCAD, he too was lanky and had this strange sex appeal that every film girl no matter their taste found charming. A women light a torch with her tongue and danced with a python, another swallowed swords and another beautifully ate fire.

But as nice as this day was it was not the reason why this birthday was one of my favorites. What really made it special was the fact that I would have liked better to have not even acknowledge it. To have put my head in the sand and forget about the passing of time, but the fact that people whom care about me wouldn’t let me do that. They didn’t drag me kicking and screaming from my self defeatism, rather they without solicitation just acknowledge me fondly and in ways that made me realize if anything my life is full of wonderfully caring people.

The day of birthday my voice mail was over flowing with random borage of people singing manic crazy versions of happy birthday, most sounded like metal or punk version of the song ending with a sincere Happy Birthday wish. My brother even left a heart felt call and texted me twice, this is a rare display of affection on his part. He even awkwardly called me “small fry” in his text, a term of brotherly affection he has never used in person.

When Brandi arrived at my house she gave me a “bouquet” of 4 scarves, each different in style and color that she found in thrift shops. It was a silly sloppy bunched together handful of fabric, but the idea of it was so unique and exactly the kind of thing I would cherish.

Later my mom called and offered me use of her credit card, which I hold for emergencies but have rarely used, to buy myself up to $40 worth of chocolate at Munson f they have them in NY. I told her I am watching my diet and she suggested I use it towards books I want to buy. Now you must understand in the history of my mothers gifts to me, she has though loving tried, she has rarely gotten me something I would actually like or use. And her finally after years of trying too hard, she just off the cuff suggests the best gift idea ever. I love buying books and after a search on Amazon I was able to find 3 books I really wanted at ridiculous discounts.

The day after my birthday Amanda came to my gallery job with a handful of lavender roses, they were amazing in their flawlessness. We had lunch in the gallery and looked for apartment for her online. no one but my family had ever given me flowers, she could have arrived with mums or dandelions and I would have been equally touched. When I got home I hung them from the hooks in our kitchen meant for our pot and pans hopefully making a bouquet that would last forever.

When I got home too there was a package for me, a poster of edible mushrooms with no note attached. At first I thought I ordered it and forgot,. I often look online at similar posters of illustration of the variety of things in this style, like Asian fish, North American birds, creature of the sea, etc. But for some reason because it was mushrooms in particular I thought of Paula. Don’t ask why, I think if it had been mollusk I would have thought the same. Just an odd association I have for her.

Turns out she did send it to me, she thought o fit because of a conversation we had 4 months earlier when I was working for chef whom has these amazing posters all down the hall. She look them up and found they were only able to be purchased in Euros, but she found a poster similar and sent it to me.

The thing is my year has been full of a lot of rejection. A lot of try and fail and though so much of my time has been swinging from job to job, opportunities found and lost, one thing is constant , the affection of these people whom despite all my brashness, by stubborn disconnect, our distance at times, they have really never stopped believing in me. This is something so precious and unfortunately not often enough appreciate in one daily life. Thank you all for being so wonderful to be my friend and loved one.