I am 34 today...

Thirty-four years ago, my surprised Mother gave birth to me after knowing she was pregnant for only a week.

Surpise!

I've always had a flair for the dramatic.

My week-long Birthday Extravaganza has been absolutely wonderful. I had a party every day since Monday, resulting in me wearing my somewhat larger pants today...

Last night they were predicting heavy snow for the area, so my girlfriends and I decided to stay in instead of going out. It was a bit of a disappointment at first, but having a slumber party for the first time in probably at least 20 years was incredibly fun.

There were 5 of us, only the best friends allowed, and it was great. I've been working so much that I've been disconnected with people that I love for such a long time....

We did facials and had many cocktails. Around 1 in the morning the "boys" showed up, knocking on our window, as they used to do so many years ago.

So we didn't go to jail and we didn't misbehave to bad, but how wonderful it was, just being together...

It can be hard to have a December birthday. When I was little my Mom actually tossed out some of the less then desirable relatives on Christmas day when they showed up with presents for all the kids except me. "Your birthday present was for Christmas too," a couple of the ignorant ones said, and my Ma went into a rage and threw them out.

The Original Party People were always very extravagent with my birthday, for this very reason. Birthday parties were hell to plan because of everyone's holiday party schedules, and most people are kind of hurting for money around this time.

These tend to be problems still, but the ones that are close to me always go out of their way on this day.

As I grew older, I realized the trouble the OPP must have went through to make my birthday special year after year. My birthday is always a great debate on when we will celebrate, how because people are broke, and when I had a bad group of friends in my early twenties, much bitching about what a pain in the ass it was anyway.

Those people are out of my life now, and the birthday extravaganza's continue year after year.

I had someone ask me why make such a big deal out of a birthday when I'm not a kid anymore.

Everyone should make a big deal out of their birthday. It is the day you were born for fuck's sake! You were given another year on this planet!

If you can't celebrate the big things, how can you celebrate the small things?

Everything should be celebrated...Isn't that what life is all about?