1154: Henry II is crowned King of England.
1732: Benjamin Franklin begins publication of "Poor Richard's
Almanack."
1777: George Washington settles his troops at Valley
Forge for the winter.
1843: Charles Dickens publishes "A Christmas Carol."
1848: Emily Bronte dies at the age of 30.
1941: Hitler takes command of the German army.
1959: The last living Civil War veteran, Walter Williams,
dies at the age of 117.
1978: John Wayne Gacy invites two police officers in for
coffee. The stench they detect leads to a search warrant which
leads to the discovery of 27 bodies decomposing under Gacy's house.
1985: The "I've fallen and I can't get up" commercial airs
for the first time.
1998: Bill Clinton is impeached.
1999: Desmond Llewellyn, James Bond's "Q", dies in a car
crash at age 85.
Here are people who were born on my birthday in...
1980: Marla Sokoloff (Lucy on The Practice)
1972: Alyssa Milano
1971 (just like me): Amy Locane (the blonde chick from the
first season of Melrose Place)
1970: Dr. Scott and Tyson Beckford
1969: Kristy Swanson (the original, movie Buffy)
1963: Jennifer Beals
1960: Mike Lookinland (Bobby Brady)
1946: Robert Urich
and of course, who can forget
1904: Leonid Brezhnev (Soviet dictator)
You know what would be the best birthday present ever, except for the two hot Krispy Kremes I got for free today because the guy at the window told me not to worry about it as I was fishing in my wallet for $1.18? If someone could figure out how I could do the sidebar so that when it was finished, the bar itself would end and the main text would just start taking up the whole screen. If any of you HTML gods and goddesses have the answer to that one, I'd be eternally grateful, and you'd probably end up as the link of the day.
This is here for amusement purposes only, and to find out my last name if you're not on the notify list. It is not, I repeat, NOT here to entice you to buy me things, although truth be told, I wouldn't return it or anything. But seriously. It's just to amuse yourself with the goofy things I want and the goofy comments I make about them.
So, let me talk about how cool my readers are.
First of all, I get home from work on Friday to find a happy little UPS post-it note stuck to my door, telling me that I had not one but two boxes from Amazon waiting for me in the apartment complex office, which was closed by the time I got home. I just figured my parents had sent me something off my wish list for my birthday.
So I trot over to the office Saturday morning to claim my prizes. In one box was Ender's Game, and in the other, Ahead of All Parting, which is an anthology of Rainer Maria Rilke's poetry and prose.
And in one of the boxes is a note from a reader, Adam, wishing me happy holidays and a speedy recovery from my back trauma.
I was so touched. I haven't linked to my wish list before, so he apparently made use of the accidental dissemination of my last name to my notify list and went in search of my list to find me a gift, just because he likes to read my words every now and then.
I thanked him privately, but I'll do it again publicly. Thank you, Adam. You are thoughtful and generous, and that is not at all stalker-ish, so don't you worry.
Then yesterday, I got home from work and checked my mail. I have your typical large apartment complex mail hut type thing, with a bunch of boxes all together. But when you find a key in your box, that means that you've gotten something too big to fit in your regular box, and you use it to open one of the bigger boxes set up for just this purpose.
I had a key in my box. Again, I was expecting something from my parents, but no, I open the door and pull out the box and it's from Athena!
And, okay, I cheated. Technically, it wasn't my birthday yesterday (it was actually hers! Happy belated, girl!), but I couldn't help myself, I opened it anyway.
Inside was a beautiful basket full of vanilla almondy scented bath and body things, including shower gel, lotion, and bar soap, and also a pouf, a brush, a face cloth, and a vanilla votive candle.
Once again, I was touched. Someone I've never met went out and picked something up, wrapped it, boxed it up, and mailed it, just because, through this medium, we have gotten to know each other to the point where the fact that we haven't met face-to-face doesn't really matter all that much.
Then, today, The Girls and I were e-mailing around trying to plan our next reunion. Later on, I had my nose buried in a deposition when my phone rang (a rather uncommon occurance), the double outside-call kind of ring. I pick it up, and it's Melissa, calling me from her office just to say hello and happy birthday, and we chatted and giggled to the point where after we hung up I felt compelled to apologize to my officemate for being so squealy.
And that made me miss them more than ever, because it's been a long time since I've sat and giggled with my girls. And I felt such gratitude for the fact that they are in my life, gratitude that when we did finally meet face-to-face, we cemented friendships with each other that far surpassed what I think any of us expected.
But frankly, I feel that way, to a certain degree, about all of you. For over two years now, I have used this as an outlet, a means of expressing myself without fear of rejection or condemnation. At the beginning, having a nameless, faceless audience was a blessing. It allowed me to say what I felt without seeing your reaction, so if you laughed or sneered or belittled, it didn't matter, because I didn't see it. I figured that whoever thought what I wrote was dumb would just quit reading, and that would be that.
But I didn't count on the flip side. I didn't count on people understanding what I wrote. Enjoying it. Empathizing with it. I didn't think about what would happen when I began to learn the names of the nameless, see the faces of the faceless. When I started to actually mean something to you, and when you started to mean so much to me.
I didn't expect that what began as an indulgence would turn into such an amazing gift. I just want you to know that even if I have never met you, even if we have never exchanged cards or e-mails, I feel blessed that you have allowed me to become a part of your life. And even if I don't know your name, I can assure you that you have indeed become a part of mine.
When I try to imagine what my life would be like had I never started this journal... well, it's nearly impossible. I know for a fact it wouldn't be the same. It would be... less.
I'm incredibly grateful that it's more. And it's more because of you. So thank you.
Yes, you.