Everyone quiet! Stop what you’re doing…and listen!

Shhhhh….

Hey you. Guess what?

It’s my birthday! WOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOO!!!!! **does a Michael Jackson “Billie Jean” spin**

That’s right, Thirty-something years ago at a hospital about 10 miles from where I’m typing right now a certain brown skinned, big headed fella was brought into this world, after much labor and suffering based on my Mother’s account, somewhere a little after two in the afternoon. Amazingly enough, I made my arrival on Earth the same day as my father so I get to share my birthday with my Dad every single year! How f’in cool is that, boys and girls? I think it’s very cool! I have lots to celebrate, I have health and a cool family now that my big sisters no longer beat me in their downtime. I’ve got a cool circle of friends here in Atlanta and beyond that I love and wouldn’t trade for anything. Yeah, I’m living a pretty good life except for this little tidbit…

Man, I got called into the office at my gig on Friday and told that my contract was up effective immediately. I mean, what kind of news is that to get leading into your birthday weekend. Boooooo, right? They could have let me work through the end of the year, right? That’s just a bummer…but then I started to think…this isn’t a bummer at all, this is the greatest thing ever. You’ve got your birthday off and you didn’t even have to ask for it, they just sorta gave it to you. I mean, given the choice I could go out and get completely Jack Daniel’ed out of my head tonight and not have to worry about crawling out of the elevator into the office lobby tomorrow morning, right? Right. Plus, I’m pretty sure that I’ll land on my feet with this job thing and not be out long so I’m not stressed.

So as I sat at the edge of the bed and said my prayer of gratitude this morning for another year I immediately started thinking of the possibilities of what I can do today and came up with this list of the top 5 things you can do on your birthday when you find yourself temporarily out of a gig two days before your birthday.

**drum roll**

1. You can spend the whole day trying to keep up with your birthday wishes on Facebook – If you’re like me and have a Facebook wall open to comments from friends then it’s tradition for that wall to get flooded with birthday wishes from friends. If I were sitting in my cubicle right now I wouldn’t be able to sit here and watch my Wall scroll all day and attempt to comment on everyone’s birthday wish, if I did that then all manner of important information would slip through the cracks…but since I’m sitting here in sweatpants and an Atlanta Falcons t shirt at my desk at home…Game On, Facebook Friends, do your worst!
2. You’re 19 all over again – Remember when you were a sophomore in college and you’d come home for Christmas break and have three weeks to do pretty much nothing leading up to Christmas? Same thing, and you know what that means…sitting cross legged in the middle of the bed with a bowl of Frosted Flakes watching The Price is Right. Come on down, b*tches!
3. If you’re like me and share your birthday with a family member you can take that family member out to lunch and then sweat it out when they start ordering all the fancy stuff that you can no longer really afford because your contract wasn’t renewed two days before your birthday. What do you mean you want the $35 Ribeye? Oh well, I hope they have the dishwashing liquid for sensitive skin.
4. Six Words…Tug of War with the dogs –  Or wait, is the proper appearance of that game Tug-O-War? And if it’s hyphenated would that make it one word, in which case the heading would be “Four Words”? I don’t know…now I’m lost; but if there’s a dog in your house it’s easy to kill a few minutes by playing Tug of War (tug-o-war) with it.
5. Find Your Silver Lining – Sure you’re not working, but you will soon so live happy. Hang out with a friend, go for a walk, exercise, embrace your passion. Dammit, it’s your birthday, live it up. Biblically speaking, we’re only promised 70 years so you’d better enjoy it while you’re on this side of the ground!

And with that, ladies and gentlemen, I’m outta here. I think I’m gonna take my Dad out for lunch for our birthdays and pray that he’s not too hungry; money’s tight, you know! If you see two handsome cats riding along in the streets of Atlanta, that’s just me and my Pop cruising the town. Pray I make it out alive!

~thanks for reading 🙂

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