Austin's Lesbo BBQ

*Disclaimer* Be prepared for long and potentially sappy blogging *

*Oh...and this is best read with the White Stripes "We're Going to Be Friends" playing in the background*

There's rarely a moment, even on my birthday, that I ever feel old...or older...or that I'm getting old...or that due to the fact that I'm aging (like the rest of the world) that I've missed something that I should've been paying attention to.

AND...I don't want to hear anything about, "Well, duh...it's because you're NOT old..." because, many a' year ago, I made this firm decision with myself that I will never, ever have this feeling.

I remember turning twelve years old....I remember being completly confused on how I should feel at this age (and, really, who didn't?)...I had so many people coming up to me and saying, "Wow. TWELVE. That's almost thirteen...a TEENAGER...so, how does it feel to a l m o s t be a TEENAGER?"

Of course, these were rhetoric questions. I actually did, at the moment of questioning, think about my feelings of pre-embarkment of pre-pre-adulthood...but, before my mouth could even quiver to produce an answer such as, "Well, I guess now I'm much more likely to die at the hands of Freddy Kruger." (When I was wee, I always felt I was safe from this dream-monster as long as I wasn't a copulating teenager)..., these people were already into expressing their next fundemental sayings (whose sole purpose was to ensure pre-teen akwardness): "Next thing you know, you'll be driving!...Well, not MY car, if I have anything to say about it...HA!

Yuk. Yuk.

Fourteen years later...it still doesn't work.

Everything from, "...now you're closer to thirty than you are to twenty." By the way, the stupidest saying EVER...Of course I'm closer to thirty than I am to twenty! I have been since the day I turned twenty and one minute! I'm also closer to seventy-two than I am to twenty...for fucks sake. I'm not a finite number that can be averaged and put into a median! As far as I know, I'm getting BIGGER in numbers every second whether I like it or not. But, whatever.

To, "Wow. 26. That's old." That came from my 19 year old coworker. I was 19 seven years ago...I don't remember 26 being "old." But, whatever.

To me, it's just that...whatever. Straight-up pointless. Uncontrolable. Inevitable.

Generally speaking, there's not much about my birthday that usually provokes thought about aging...or getting older...or life...or the meaning behind it. It's another day. It just happens.

But...here's what I'm getting at: This birthday was different.

For the first time in my entire life, I realized that time is more than a number measured in minutes, hours, years, songs and bad fashion...This year, I think it came to my conscious attention that it just may be what holds up to time, rather than the time itself, that is really what everybody's been concerned about from the very beginning.

Those middle-school mom's were just purly amazing that I survived as a human being for tweleve years...those 21st birthday keg-stands were just a celebration of all our abilities to beat time and it's inevitalbe bias against all the self-destructive tendencies...time will fight it all...tis' a tough contender...

But...when it comes down to time versus friendship...it's a close battle. There's no physical or kindred bind in friendship...nothing in writing or law that says that friends have to do anything or be anywhere at any time...no real obligations. It's not inevitable...or uncontrolable. Everything that's done in the realm of friendship is done by choice...with effort. Time easily can, and often does, win the battle.

And when it comes down to MY friends...there's been many a battle. Some have been small skirmishes...other's could be compared to the fights that led to the deaths of those four Canadians in the Korean War...but, either way, it seems to me, that friendship has always come up the victors in the end.

If I had ANY doubts, they were certainly shaken this weekend....

When I opened that card, it's what did it...I don't want to discount the AWESOME present in the box that followed...but, really...the card did it. I was floored by so many aspects of this endevor:

1. That you bitches were able to do this behind my back without me finding out.

2. That you put a concerted effort into it...and it came through.

3. That you even cared enough to begin with to even THINK about putting this together...AND

4. That you bitches were able to do this behind my back without me finding out.

You people made me cry...and these were GOOD tears...the tears of pure happiness...the kind that normally only come out of me when I watch "The Price's Is Right" and I see those people ecstatically jog down the Bob Barker runway with the optomistic chance of "
a better life through stuff" look in their eye.

Pure happiness.

I have, without the slightest doubt, the best friends EVER. Held up to time...there's no comparison...they've beaten it...and again, without the slightest doubt, will continue to kick it's ass for the rest of my life.

And I know...I've said it already...but really...Thank You....I had the best birthday EVER.