I made it through the first day of my 68th year unscathed for the most part. A couple of surprises along the way, and not all surprises are good ones, but you just go with the flow and make the best of them. I can honestly say this was the best birthday I’ve had. This year. Here’s the lowdown on how it unfolded.
Swan canceled our morning coffee get-together because she had something else to do. She did send me a GIF wishing me a happy birthday. Yep, you heard that right–I got a GIF for my birthday! And then I didn’t hear from her again until later that night. I won’t lie; the fact that she couldn’t spare an hour or two to spend with me on the once-a-year occasion of celebrating my birth was a little off-putting and made me start questioning just how much she values having me in her life. And then, at the end of my night of beer drinking my blues away, I saw this posted on her Facebook:
And yes, I’m sure it was Swan’s way of paying respect to her deceased love, but after being stiffed on my b-day, it made me feel like shit.
Another bleak happening was that God, through his bitch, Mother Nature, sent me a typhoon as a gift. It rained like a mother fucker all damn day, precluding me from taking my usual Sunday solo hike. Well, at least it gave me plenty of time to sit around feeling sorry for myself.
On a more positive note, I have exactly 888 Facebook “friends.” And yesterday, I received birthday greetings from over 200 of them, some of whom I hadn’t heard from in years. It was nice to be remembered! Facebook also shared a birthday memory from seven years ago when I was still working and living in Seoul:
Trapped in the house with nowhere to go, I made myself a birthday breakfast:
The neighbor behind my place had an erection that I could not avoid seeing:
I was hanging out, hoping the rain would ease up before I headed into town. Then I got a message from Chris and Shieryl asking if I was going to come to Sloppy Joe’s. Well, it was feeding day at Hideaway, so I responded, “Probably not.” They wanted to buy me a birthday beer, and since I had to walk past Sloppy Joe’s to get to Hideaway, I told them I would pop in for one on my way.
The second surprise was that the cake was a gift from Mary (the 18-year-old I befriended who is now working in Manila). Shieryl told me Mary had sent her the money and asked that she give me a cake on my birthday. I messaged Mary a thank-you and she had some kind words about how much I have meant to her. That was sweet and improved my mood some.
I let the bar staff enjoy the cake leftovers, finished my beer, and went on to complete my feeding mission. As usual, I ordered the grub from Jewel Café and had it delivered to Hideaway.
Naturally, I rang the bell to purchase all the girls a lady drink as part of the celebration.
There was a bit of controversy over the food. I noticed one of the girls not eating and motioned her to come get some. She wanted fried chicken, and it was all gone. Now, I had ordered eleven meals as specified in Joy’s message, so everyone should have got what they wanted. I saw one girl walk away with two boxes, and it just killed my buzz thinking they treated each other like that. I messaged Joy later, and she explained that she had called the left-out gal to get her food, and she had declined to come. When she did, the wings she wanted had been eaten. So, really, it was her own fault. They call that girl “the crazy one,” and I’ve seen some behavior that warrants the nickname. So, whatever. Anyway, I spent a hundred bucks in Hideaway between the food and the lady drinks. Usually, I leave in a good mood, but that wasn’t the case last night.
Earlier, my former love and now friend at Snackbar had messaged me asking that I come by so they could wish me a Happy Birthday. So, I made the long walk across town in the rain to do so.
That visit turned out to be the highlight of my night. For the first time in a very long time, me and “Pam” had a long and heartfelt one-on-one discussion about what’s been going on in our lives. She told me about ending the relationship with the man she had gone back to after me and about the new relationship she had recently made. I believe she has definitely traded up this time, and I’m happy and hopeful for her. She knows about Swan, and I got to talk some about how it felt to be ignored by her on my birthday. Pam gave me the same advice as others have said–be patient and give Swan time. She also thought I should plan a getaway trip, which I’d actually been considering. So, my drunken self was feeling a little better about things after I departed from Snackbar.
And then I came home and saw the post from Swan about all the things she missed. I’m an impatient and selfish man, but damn, I don’t know how long I can play the role of second fiddle in her life to a dead man. Swan says it will be better in October when I move in. We shall see.
This should be a happy time in my life.
I will conclude with this Calvin and Hobbs cartoon that reminded me of the math problems Kevin Kim sometimes posts on his blog.
It’s time for me to Hash…hopefully, the rain holds off today.
And yes, I’m sure it was Swan’s way of paying respect to her deceased love, but after being stiffed on my b-day, it made me feel like shit.
I’m really sorry to hear that, especially on your birthday. This doesn’t make Swan into an evil person, but from my distant vantage, she does come off as a bit tone-deaf. I mean, come on—she’s aware you read her Facebook, yes?
It rained like a [motherfucker] all damn day, precluding me from taking my usual Sunday solo hike.
You don’t don a rain jacket and go road/street hiking? Well, then again, it was a typhoon and not a typical, smallish storm.
The neighbor behind my place had an erection that I could not avoid seeing
Almost looks as if they’re doing a small rooftop wedding.
Mary (the 18-year-old I befriended who is now working in Manila)
“Befriended.” Ha ha. You kill me. Boink, boink, boink.
The colors made me wonder if this cake was a leftover from Pride Month.
Pride Month or not, that cake obviously took a bit of work. Nice.
re: Gwapo/Guapo
So “gwapo” is the bastardized Filipino spelling of the Spanish “guapo,” I gather.
They made me this nice sign, too.
You see how the sign says “Guapo” with a “u.”
And then the food arrived.
So who is the serious-looking guy at the bar?
re: imaginary numbers
You may remember that, with so-called real numbers, a square root can never be negative. But with imaginary numbers, square roots of negative numbers are possible. So i = the square root of -1. This means, for example, that the square root of -25 is 5i.
I remember being frustrated when learning about imaginary numbers because none of my teachers ever explained what they were for. It was only much later in life that I discovered imaginary numbers are used in branches of physics to describe the properties and behaviors of things like electric fields. So despite being imaginary, these numbers all have a real-world use. And I’m left to resent several of my math teachers for never having offered a simple explanation as to what these numbers were good for. Not that this problem has ever kept me awake at night, but this is still an annoying chapter in my past.
re: Swan
I’m guessing that part of Swan’s tone-deafness comes from the fact that she’s still marinating in the tragedy. There could be some (clinical) depression involved. Depressed people often can’t help focusing on themselves; their horizon narrows to a very small point, like a spotlight whose beam shrinks until it illuminates only them. This at least partly explains what’s going on in a suicidally depressed person’s head when they cease to see any options for escaping their situation other than self-elimination. I can only imagine it’s hard to fight this horizon-narrowing when you’re depressed. If this is, in fact, depression, Swan will paradoxically need breathing room while at the same time requiring a network of people around her to help her through this. So one way to look at her tone-deafness is to understand that she’s walking a rough road. The best thing you can do is just be there for her. Presence is everything.
I get that your patience has limits. You have my sympathy, but I confess that part of me does derive some grim satisfaction from watching you have to switch from the usual sex-on-day-one bullshit to this slow, plodding pace. It’s to your credit, though, that you think Swan is worth the trouble. She really must be something.
Ever see “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”? There’s that hilarious scene where our protagonist, Pete, has broken up with Sarah and is seeing Rachel, but late in the movie, Sarah starts coming on to Pete after she’s broken up with her pretentious Brit boyfriend Aldous. Pete succumbs to Sarah’s advances, but Pete hilariously has an attack of conscience in mid-blowjob. He somehow manages to pull away from Sarah out of loyalty to Rachel and, feeling awful, he lamely confesses the half-blowjob to Rachel. She is understandably furious, and she goes to her friend and coworker Dwayne and tells him what Pete told her. Dwayne, impressed, tells Rachel that Pete must be some kind of saint to stop himself mid-blowjob. No guy does that: the self-restraint on display is incredible. This shifts Rachel’s view slightly, and she eventually forgives Pete for his indiscretion.
While your situation isn’t quite analogous to Pete’s, and as much as I feel some Schadenfreude about your current plight, I do also respect your self-restraint. Here’s hoping your patience is rewarded. The dynamic is going to shift a lot come October, and I still wonder whether there’s some awkwardness about Swan being your employee but also your romantic interest. I guess you’ll figure things out. That’s my hope, anyway.
Meanwhile, Happy Post-birthday! You did say one thing I should address, though:
I made it through the first day of my 68th year unscathed
You’re actually embarking on your 69th year. Turning 68 means you’ve already lived 68 years. But as you like to say: age is just a number. Then again, so is your ratio of cell birth to cell death. Heh.
Kevin, thank you for your insights, especially regarding the Swan situation. It is indeed difficult and confusing. I’ve not given up yet, but I confess I’m beginning to question whether this relationship will ultimately be worth the effort. I mean, I get that she is going through an emotional trauma, the pain of which I can only imagine. At the same time, I’m not willing to sacrifice my long-term happiness for someone who can’t or won’t at least try to consider my needs and feelings. Maybe October will be a miracle for us both.
“she’s aware you read her Facebook, yes?”
Yes, indeed. I confess that after seeing her offensive post, I copied it and sent it to her Messenger saying, “Me too.” Hey, I was drunk, hurt, and a little angry.
No, I don’t own any raingear. A lot of the locals put on the plastic, but it looks to me like that would be uncomfortably warm. I’ll walk with an umbrella in moderate rainfall, but when it is torrential and windy, an umbrella doesn’t do much to keep you dry.
“Almost looks as if they’re doing a small rooftop wedding.”
Yes, some type of dinner/reception took place on the rooftop on Saturday and Sunday. Perhaps the erection is temporary. Those shelters don’t appear they would survive a moderately windy typhoon.
“Boink, boink, boink.”
Does it get any friendlier than that?
Gwapo is by far the most common spelling, but yes, the Spanish guapo is also used. I did a quick check on Google to see which is the proper Tagalog rendering and found both, along with guwapo. I’m a gwapo guy; everybody tells me so.
“So who is the serious-looking guy at the bar?”
That’s Rolan, the bartender/night manager. He’s a nice, friendly guy.
I’m totally clueless when it comes to math. Everything you wrote about imaginary numbers may as well have been in Greek. Passing basic algebra in college was a nightmare. I still don’t know how I pulled that off. That fuck up with my age is a good example of my incompetence. I briefly considered whether it was my 68th or 69th year and just went with my age. I did have a feeling that was wrong, but I couldn’t be bothered to work it out logically.
I don’t think I ever heard of “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” but it sounds like my kind of movie!
Thanks again for sharing your thinking regarding my Swan situation. She at least knows now that I’m upset and unsatisfied. Will she walk away, or will she work with me to fix things? Stay tuned.
Definitely watch “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.” It’s a hilarious comedy.
McCrarey, I read your response to Kevin regarding the tent on the neighbor’s roof. “Perhaps the erection is temporary”. The story of my life.
What is the difference between regular seating and VIP seating. When I wore a younger man’s clothes and went to the shoe-shows the VIP area is where the “real” fun was had(wink, wink).
Three birthday cakes in one day. Now that is what I call a trifecta. You are proof positive that you can have your cake and eat it too.
Peace Out!
Sorry if the wording was a little, um, hard on you, Soju.
The VIP room at Snackbar is comfortably furnished and has its own sound system, even Karaoke if that’s your thing. No Shenanigans, though. The door to the kitchen goes through there.
I had no bread for my supper, so it was indeed nice to get the cakes!
I couldn’t find it on Netflix. I did see that it is on YouTube–for a price (rent it for five bucks, buy it for ten). I started the process to rent it, but when it came time to provide my credit card info, I just didn’t trust the process. I’ve never seen a charge for YouTube before (other than to avoid commericals). My other apps, like Spotify) charge their monthly fee to my phone bill, which feels safer than giving out my Visa card info.
The trailers look great, I’ll do the Pirate Bay thing if I have to…