I feel that I should point out that I don't quite have the knack of the whole anniversary thing just yet.
Part of it is plain out forgetfulness. My memory is a bit like Swiss cheese, with holes where the important stuff should be. I can rattle off football and basketball stats and tell you what conference most college teams fall into, but I'm sure I couldn't even name all my nieces and nephews without my wife's help... which is singularly hilarious considering she's had thirty-nine less years to get to know the family. I would blame it on the constant drug use in my youth, except for the sad fact that the only drugs I consistently used in my youth were No-Doz, Vivarin and Ephedrine.
And it gets even worse with dates. Wayyyyy worse. If I didn't have a calendar app on my phone, I would have no idea when birthdates, anniversaries and Days of Significant Note even were. I am that horrible about them.
My mental calendar goes something like this:
January 1st - New Years Day
January 3rd - Mom's Birthday (drilled into my head from ten plus years of forgetting it)
January 31st - Last Day of January Day
February (first week) - Winter Can Officially Go Fuck Itself and Give Us Spring Day
March Something or Other - NCAA Basketball Championship Games
March (?) - Stepson's Birthday
May 2.... 4... 13... 26th (?) Trophy Wife's™ Birthday
July 4 - July 4th Day (observed)
August (?) - Stepdaughter's Birthday
August 24-28 - Gen Con
October 31 - Halloween
November, Sometime, usually late - Thanksgiving
December 21st - Shit, I Forgot I Was Supposed to Buy That One Thing For Christmas Day
December 25th - Christmas
I'm sure I'm missing some in there somewhere. Our anniversary, for instance, is in.... October? Maybe? The fourteenth? That sounds vaguely familiar. But that's just to show how out of connect with dates I get. My Trophy Wife™ once asked me if I knew her birthday, and I laughed.
"Ha-ha. See?" I said, holding up my LG Android. "I have it right here on my phone. May 2nd."
"Would you remember the date if your phone suddenly died?" She asked.
"Of course I would!" I scoffed.
"Without looking at your phone, what is it?"
- Insert horrifyingly panicked expression here -
It's actually a good thing that my birthday is on a national holiday; otherwise, I would never remember it. Years would come and go without me realizing my birthday had passed by. I would be constantly wondering why my 27-year-old body felt like it was at least 40-plus. (I am that utterly oblivious to the passage of time, except for the fact that it affects my body in very bad ways-- usually involving aches, pains, and lots of medication.) I'm desperately hopeful that COUCH is born on January 1st, or I'll never remember it, and that will be followed by all sorts of mutual recriminations and probable child therapy.
Therapist: So what seems to be the problem?
COUCH: For starters, my dad is horrible. For thirteen straight years, he's missed my birthday, and keeps making excuses that he can't remember it.
Me: That's because I can't remember it. Ever since Facebook went belly-up, I don't get any alerts to remind me! And didn't I buy you a game last year?
COUCH: That was for Gen Con. Again. Not for my birthday. You can't remember that, but you sure as hell can remember that Peyton Manning threw for 3200 yards his last year with the Colts...
Me: 4700 yards. Jesus, if you're going to bash me, at least be accurate.
COUCH: You see? This is why Mom cries herself to sleep so often.
This sort of outcome, a few years down the road, frightens me more than I care to admit.
Before I forget it (and I most likely will), I do want to say thank you very much to a very wonderful woman who, on September 16th, 2005, posted the following on an artist's wall at deviantArt: "ooo... I'll have to give you a watch. Your pictures are not just stunning but have a sense of storytelling to them. I'll have to come back and give your gallery a thorough ransacking."
This sort of outcome, a few years down the road, frightens me more than I care to admit.
* * *
Before I forget it (and I most likely will), I do want to say thank you very much to a very wonderful woman who, on September 16th, 2005, posted the following on an artist's wall at deviantArt: "ooo... I'll have to give you a watch. Your pictures are not just stunning but have a sense of storytelling to them. I'll have to come back and give your gallery a thorough ransacking."
Little did she know that the artist would respond, and seven years down the road, she'd have met him, and probably despite her better judgment, both moved out of state to live in a house with him and then married him. And in so doing, made him the happiest guy on earth, all jokes and barbs he makes on this blog aside.
It's hard to believe it's already been seven years, and hopefully the next seven are every bit as wonderfully memorable.
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