So, to celebrate...

I try to keep my birthday somewhat low-key. Obviously, my family and close friends know and I enjoy hearing from them, but I generally don't like the attention. Not sure why, but it's difficult to keep it low-key when you are a pastor at a church. All things considered, though, I'm glad that I work at a place where people love and care about me and were so nice to shake hands or smile and say "Happy Birthday!" and do so in a genuine way. Even if 38 isn't nearly as interesting as say 15 (permit), 16 (license), 18 (vote/grownup status), 21 (legal) or 25 (when the car insurance rates went WAY down).

That was nice, but what was peculiar was that several people asked me, "Hey, if it's your birthday, how come on your blog when other people have birthdays you tell your readers to celebrate by doing stuff that the birthday person does, why didn't you do that on YOUR birthday? You know, when it was your friend's birthday, you told us to celebrate by getting piercing or on your sister's birthday you told us to fly a plane...that kind of stuff?"

It was funny on a couple of fronts: First, I didn't know that some of those people read my blog so closely (or even at all).

Second, I'd never thought about putting my own charicature traits out there...

So, here goes:

Hey, everybody, it was my 38th birthday yesterday, so let's all celebrate by dressing a decade behind the times (and wearing a hairstyle 30 years behind them), watching a mindless comedy on DVD enough times to memorize lines and apply them to daily situations, simultaniously reading books by C.S. Lewis and Al Franken, and fail to see the irony in driving a minivan around while listening to the Sex Pistols.

If you wanted to celebrate in a more "retro" manner, you could wear a mullet, drive a '77 Cutlass Supreme while listening to Iron Maiden, going to the batting cages and hitting 200 pitches and wasting your high school and first two years of university educations by manipulating systems to get average grades instead of learning.