Celebrity blogger and frequent Colonel T Show guest SABS posted a lovely tribute to me and my birthday over at his website. Certainly he puts to rest any remnants of my “I look like Kenny Rogers” trauma from yesterday. I’m confident that I do not, in any way, resemble Kenny Rogers.
Anyway, thanks to the entire Evening With SABS staff, and we’ll do our best not to forget your birthday next year.
Today I celebrate my 32nd birthday. I look pretty good for 32, even if my resemblance to Kenny Rogers grows stronger with each passing moment.
Throughout today I’ll be checking in and letting you know if anyone at work has acknowledged my birthday. If by the time I leave at 4:45 no one has said anything, I will be devastated. Join me on this journey, won’t you?
9:43: So far, no one has said a word. Hey, it’s early and people need to drink coffee and browse websites. I’m not worried yet.
10:22: It occurs to me I haven’t had enough botox to liken myself to Kenny Rogers. I apologize. No one has said word to me about the birthday. Still.
11:32: I want to apologize for that Kenny Rogers botox gag. It’s so passe. I’m headed to a lunch meeting now. Will there be cake for dessert? Birthday cake? We’ll see.
1:46: Back from lunch and still nothing. Less than three hours to go. I’m thinking no one has any idea it’s my birthday. Oh well.
1:47: Just moments ago, I received an email from an attorney congratulating me on my birthday! I have no idea how she knew it was my birthday. I must have trained her on setting up anniversaries in Lotus Notes and used my birthday as an example. In any event, it warmed my heart. Now how can I parlay that into further accolades? Project her email onto the office wall?
2:20: Hey! What that in my mailbox? A confidential envelope? And what’s in the confidential envelope? Another envelope! And in THAT envelope? A Happy Birthday card! It’s from “The Company”, whatever that means. There’s a coupon for two free movie tickets, with which I plan to see “X-Men 3: More X-Men” for free, assuming it’s still in a theater somewhere.
4:07: They didn’t forget me after all. My team just serenaded me with a little “Happy Birthday” action, and presented me with a card, a deck of cards, and a cake. All is right with the world. But the REAL party is coming up later, at home. Stay tuned.
Sorry for the quickie post, but I had to get that sentimental stuff off the top of the page. Man, am I uncomfortable sharing my feelings. Good thing I have a blog!
Ten points to whomever gets the reference in the post title. Elizabeth, you aren’t eligible. Not that you read my blog anyway. Sniff.
(Editor’s Note: Several weeks ago, I wrote the following in a drunken stupor. As you’ll soon read, I knew that if I sobered up before I got to an Internet connection, I’d never have the courage to post it. Turns out I was right.
Fortunately for you, I’m drinking at HOME tonight.)
So I got drunk at work today.
I work for a multi-million dollar law firm. When I say multi-million, I mean closer to 1 billion than 1 million. The degree to which I’m lucky to have this job cannot be measured. These last 365 days…imagine throwing all the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle into the air and having all them land together in exactly the right position to form the completed puzzle. I can’t really explain it any better than that.
For those of you wondering, yes, I am still drunk. I’m writing this on the train home from work, and the only chance this entry will actually be posted is if I’m still drunk by the time I get home to my internet connection. Why? Because I’m going to write about my feelings, and I generally blockade those behind an barricade penetrable only by tequila-based beverages.
Which, not coincidentally, I consumed many of prior to the writing of this post! Yay for you!
Let’s start at the beginning, back at that tantalizing first sentence where I revealed I got drunk at work this afternoon. Periodically, the firm takes “time-out” to celebrate…life? Financial security? The weekend? Class action suits against big tobacco? I don’t know. I just show up. The firm literally calls these events Time-Outs, and essentially we, the hard-working staff, are provided us with endless quantities of food and alcohol. I think tonight’s Time-Out was tied to the “Taste of Chicago” celebration that happens every year in this fair city. Whatever. The theme is irrelevant. Earlier today, when I passed by the conference room where the celebration was to be held, I saw eight bottles of Jose Cuervo, and, well, at that point all productivity was lost.
When I see Jose Cuervo bottles, I hear angels singing.
Round about 3:30, one of my co-workers, a fine gentlemen named John with whom I often discuss poker, smuggled up some beers for my department. Warm-up drinks, we called them. We all imbibed, energized by the rebellious act of boozing it up at the workplace. There I am, sitting in my cube, sipping at my Sam Adams and writing training documentation. Oh, life is good, I thought, and I hadn’t even had a sip of tequila! I received a call from a kind and personable attorney who needed BlackBerry advice, so I popped a mint in my mouth, moseyed up to the 56th floor, and spent some time with him slightly buzzed, talkin’ about the advantages of the BlackBerry 8700g vs. the 7290. I felt free. Loose. Rebellious. Right. On the way back to my office, I couldn’t help but think to myself, sweet mother of Odin, I dig this gig.
At 4:00 PM, the Time-Out proper started, and I wasted no time making my way down to floor 45. The celebration has already begun in earnest; at least 100 people are already eating, drinking, and reveling in each others’ company. I make my way to the corner where I earlier saw the Jose Cuervo. Two gentleman are hard at work keeping up with the demand of margarita-hungry attorneys and staff. I grab a plastic cup filled with frozen strawberry tequila goodness, and while I prefer my margaritas on the rocks, beggars should never be choosers. Not that I was a beggar, but, hey, it had been a while.
For the next two hours, I hung, and I talked, and I joked, and it was spectacular. It’s been so long since I’ve had a chance to unleash the inner drunken Colonel T, the one who is uniformly way more interesting than the baseline, undrunken T, and it felt So. Good. And, best of all, there weren’t any 6-to-7 foot tall objects for me to lift my leg on to – in the last couple years, when I’ve had too much to drink I inevitably offer people a wager: “I’ll bet you a dollar I can put my foot on that” – where “that” is a golf cart, or a staircase, or a bookshelf, or a mantle, etc. Every object in the conference room was three feet in height or under, and considering I was still at work, that was probably for the best.
Once the evening wrapped up…as my co-workers one-by-one said their goodbyes for the weekend…I excused myself from the gathering, retreated to my cube and called Elizabeth to let her know I was coming home.
As I walked (stumbled? swaggered?) to the elevator, I pulled out Elizabeth’s iPod – a pink iPod, which I have no problem using in public because I’m secure in my masculinity – and inserted the earbuds into my foggy noggin’. As I exited the building the first song ramped up and blasted its way into my brain.
Huey Lewis. The Heart of Rock and Roll.
Heck, yes.
It started just as I emerged into the sunlight and warmth of the Chicago dusk.
At that very moment, I was overwhelmed with…emotion? Nostalgia? Some combination of the two I think, fueled by Jose Cuervo and his sacred nectar.
I thought immediately of my girls, already almost three months old, and how much I was looking forward to seeing them. I thought of Madeline, who has developed this incredibly manipulative smile, which she unleashes on unsuspecting onlookers first thing in the morning. “Pick me up,” it screams, and once you do, she’ll never let you put her down. And who would want to, really?
I thought about Molly, with her teenager-like sleeping habits and attitude, and her much more infrequent, but no less spectacular, smile. I wonder what she’s thinking, when I sing They Might Be Giants songs to her.
How I miss them during the day.
I thought about the lovely Elizabeth, my spouse and best friend, and how whatever beauty and intelligence and grace and wisdom and sass and spirit our daughters possess come from her. (All I can hope to impart is an knack for technology and a passion for William Shatner.)
I thought about my parents, who finally have the grandchildren they were undoubtedly beginning to think they would never have, how happy my Mom seems whenever she is with them..how much I appreciate her watching them three days a week…and how much happier and smarter the girls will be because of it. I also thought about how…weird?…it is to see my Dad kiss the girls on the forehead. Weird, and awesome.
I thought about my brother, the Internet celebrity, with vision and ambition that far surpasses mine, and how proud I am of him.
I thought about my sister, who in my mind has been eight years old for eighteen years, and how she seemingly became the most successful of all of us overnight, and how amazing that is. I also reflected briefly on how she killed my fish, because I harbor grudges, but I let that pass fairly quickly.
And moments later, after I thought about all of that, Huey started singing about rock and roll, and I walked into the Chicago sunset about as happy as I’ve ever been. I thought to myself, “I’d better fire up Microsoft Word the second I get on the train, because there’s no way I’m going to be able to capture this to paper once the buzz and the music ends.”
And so I did.
And here it is.
And this is the fourth paragraph in a row I’ve started with the word “and.” That means it’s time to wrap this post up.
Big love to y’all.
This has been around for a while, but I saw it for the first time just moments ago. If you’re a fan of both shows, as I am, you’ll be delighted and entranced:
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