When you’ve shown your ass to the world for the last sixteen years that ALANILAGAN.com has been around, it’s a bit of a relief to put all your clothes on and celebrate in a new kind of birthday suit. Hence this birthday post. Suited up in the post-coital garden of Adam and Eve, the only cup you will see here is in the cup plant behind me. (My junk is buried deep in the archives so you’ll have to search to find it.)
As for birthday wisdom this year, I’m feeling a little drained. This isn’t some grand post with multi-layered levels of meaning. This is me at 44 not giving a shit because I’m pretty happy with where I am right now. But there’s still some bitter to go with the sweet, so let’s have at that.
Forty-fucking-four, and I feel every second of it. Not always in a bad way, in fact usually not in a bad way. I earned all the gray hairs, laugh-lines and frown-creases I’ve got, and I wouldn’t trade them for anything. I traded them happily for knowledge and a certain amount of wisdom. I also bartered for patience and a bit of apathy, because in the not-so-distant past I cared a little too much. Better to let things go, better to let others get bogged down with semantics and the eternal quest for what’s right. It’s ok to be wrong. It’s ok to make mistakes. I don’t have to like it, I just have to be ok with it, and I am.
44 has a nice smooth edge to it – two even numbers divisible by 2 and 4 and even 11. Not one to get into numerology, I still hope that 44 brings about luck and fortune. I’™m more into astrology, which has me on the Leo-Virgo cusp, with a distinctive preference toward the latter. And second only to Virgo regarding annoyance factor may be Leo, which is why I’m so often such an insufferable dominatrix of sorts. (It also means that it’s much easier just to do as I say from the beginning because I’m going to get my way in the end. Why must it be so much work for everyone?)
Sorry, it’s my birthday, so I get to be a little insufferable. (And having just re-read these last few sentences I am roaring with derisive laughter. Leos roar; Virgos deride. This is my sweet spot.)
Birthdays sometimes turn into an opportunity to indulge in a little nostalgia, but this year I’m not feeling that. We will look back another time. Right now I’m worlds away, floating on a cloud of musical theater, traipsing through streets of storied beauty, and thanking my maker for keeping me ticking another year.
