Happy birthday to Templeton, and Dialogue, and most of all happy 33rd to ME! (No, really, it's OK, you don't have to upvote this just because it's my birthday.) I don't remember a single gift for certain from last year; there may have been
Star Wars shampoo. (No, really. One of the ingredients was "
sea rocket juice".) Usually people make a big deal of your birthday when you are very close; apparently the person closest to me now is my sister Kim, who has invited me over for pizza. Probably Dad and Pam will be by later for coffee and cake (hopefully
ice cream cake). Grandma sent me a card, I suppose I should call her, but I feel more distant from her than many other people I haven't spoken to in months. Chris sent me an e-card. A couple of fellow noders /msg'd me, bless your remote interfaces. Just for today, I love you all.
When I was a kid Mom wanted us to produce lists of things we might want for gifts, for birthdays and Christmas. Being a little on the obsessive side of the collector-hobbyist spectrum, there was always a multipage list of books, Atari games, Lego kits, and eventually albums and RPG things. Clothes were like a necessary evil, so I grudgingly conceded some clothing suggestions. For a long time my "want list" was one of the central documents of my life, up there with my journal and to-do list. Over past 5 years, my feelings about material goods have slowly reversed. I guess I considered material goods intrinsically valuable, an illimitable good. Now I feel like that line from Fight Club about the things I own coming to own me. I can accept belonging, but not to objects. This change is propagating to my feelings about gifts, money, work, leisure, and social life.