Desperado Under the Eave. Written by the Doc

Another year.

Hiding out in an abandoned apartment is the only way to spend a birthday these days. With the newly-coined Global Struggle Against Extremism, it’s really the only safe place to celebrate the day you were crowned from mama’s birthing canal. It’s with this in mind – my deep respect for national security – that I hid this year’s annual unruliness from most interested (and some uninterested) parties.

Naturally, spending a birthday alone can be trying, at least for the first few moments. Most of us have grown accustomed to surrounding ourselves with pals, and then beating our livers to death. But there is a point to a celebration in solitude…

Some of us sputter through our years; take the safe bets, cover our bases, dot our i’s, cross our t’s. These folks walk the Right path. They will live long lives. They’ll spawn well-behaved children. They will eventually bask in the glory of a successful 401K. I have the utmost respect for these people.

But I am not one of them.

I’ve spit, shit, sucked, and fucked a good deal of the last decade away and – while it’s been a wild ride – a stiff night of self-contemplation (and strong liquor) was in order. Johnny Walker Blue sells for $212 a fifth, and since it’s my holiday, it was necessary to splurge. I recommend it highly to all of you. So, J.W. Blue in hand, I began to reminisce.

July 28th, 1976. At 3:42 a.m., an earthquake measuring between 7.8 and 8.2 magnitude on the Richter scale flattens Tangshan, a Chinese industrial city with a population of roughly 1 million people. As almost everyone was asleep in their beds, instead of outside in the relative safety of the streets, the quake was especially costly in terms of human life. An estimated 242,000 people in Tangshan and the surrounding areas were killed.

Less than an hour later, I was born. It was imperative that I came in with a bang.

What’s my point? Nothing. This was the kind of swill that I found myself daydreaming about with a head full of Johnny Walker though. Nasty thoughts…

Another one: With respect to its definition, why does the word abbreviation have so many letters?

I’m wandering here. Concentrate, Doc.

A birthday by one’s lonesome is not a necessity for everyone. The 401K posse that I mentioned earlier has no use for the solitude. But those of us with a little dirt behind our ears have to take stock in our years every once in a while. We have to attempt to right many of our previous wrongs, in our own minds if nowhere else.

So for one night, I rambled over all the toes I’ve stepped on, all the hearts I’ve bruised, all the knuckles I’ve broken, all the tears I’ve wept, and all the money I’ve spent. Most importantly, I reflected on all the people I’ve hurt over the years; some on accident, most on purpose… And for one moment, albeit a long one, I was sorry.

Of course, that was just the whiskey talking.

Cheers to my friends, my friends’ friends, and the rest of the drinkers that I respect. Screw the rest of you. Happy birthday to me.