09/03/2003 @18:31:22 ^21:18:04

RjY's birthday roundup!

It's my birthday today. Here's what happened on all my birthdays since the time the temporal record existed:

• 1993: My 14th birthday was, thankfully, pretty quiet. Following an incident the previous year I'd resolved to stop telling people when it was and fortunately the selfish gobshites had played along with my plan by forgetting it. I went around smiling to myself and occasionally popping another spearmint or orange TicTac.
• 1994: Due to an unfortunate circumstance some six months previously a couple of people had rediscovered the date. Fortunately they weren't people I hung around with normally, so none of them said anything in earshot of anyone else and I largely managed to keep a lid on it. I'd had to do P.E. that day, but on the other hand I got my sampler, one of my most treasured possessions. Its brand name was "Black Box" which was hilarious because it was grey.
• 1995: Since the previous I'd been out with this girl and told her my birthday and she remembered and told all of our friends. Cue lots of people going "Oh, it's your birthday? Happy birthday!" including many who'd just overheard others and wouldn't normally give me the time of day. It was so forced, and so I thanked them whilst entertaining unpleasant thoughts about social conventions.
• 1996: I turned 17 on a Saturday. Having spent the morning programming I went to an aunt's house. They gave me a present of a bottle of cider from which I drank several glasses. I went home then to the phone box down the road where I phoned the girl I'd had a crush on for years. It was a friendly chat, anyway by that time my crush was common knowledge and a huge joke, half the time I was just playing it up for laughs. Anyway my money ran out and I went home again then the following Monday learned she'd phoned the box back, which greatly upset me.
• 1997: This was the first year I wasn't living out in the middle of nowhere so there was a chance that I could go out. Surprisingly I went to see Mars Attacks! with about six others. However this wasn't because it was my birthday, they were going anyway and I'd spent the previous month complaining about how no-one ever invited me anywhere. Nothing changes huh?
  However I discovered that the girl I'd been out with in 1994 had walked round my house to see me (she only lived a few streets away from where we'd moved to) At the time I'd been asleep so her knock wasn't heard. This upset me as much as the phone box incident from the previous year.
• 1998: Now everyone had left school and was away at university. Except by that time I'd dropped out from my first first year. Predictably I hadn't told anyone from my ex-university when my birthday was so nothing happened.
• 1999: Back at university, on campus again and actually managing to stay there, but still avoiding telling anyone when my birthday was, what happened was pretty much a repeat of 1993. I went around smiling to myself, even to this stupid bands competition thing in the union. That was at lunchtime. I spent the evening finishing off a record and thus annoying my gobshite flat with loud distorted kikdrums.
• 2000: People had got wind of the fact that my birthday was somewhere towards the beginning of March but having no idea of the precise date I was able to endure the entire day free from social convention driven wellwishers. I spent the time coding for the Fortran course project, which by that time had become enjoyable because my code was actually solving the equations and all I was doing was adding bells, whistles, tricks and making it look nice.
  Since I was 21 and therefore supposedly independent my mum bought me three deluxe gold-cased condoms. After laughing for about half an hour I spluttered "when the hell do you think I'm ever going to be able to use these things?" Needless to say the "use by" date passed and I had to throw them out.
• 2001: In a remarkable U-turn I had decided to announce my birthday. It was on a Friday so I thought for once I could do something. However it turned out that it was also three days before the biggest coursework deadline ever (guess what for, yes, Writing Skills) so that put paid to any plans I might have had. I spent the day making an admittedly humourous poster.
  However I did say "It's my birthday, I'm going to Metamorphosis tomorrow night, please come with me" No-one except Elliot did and he would have gone anyway so as usual I was annoyed.
• 2002: I went to an old school rave called Back in the Day and also finally managed to get laid
• 2003: Fully aware that I am never, ever going to top last year, I didn't know what to do. It got worse and I ended up staying up all of last night, too upset to want to go to sleep. This was in spite of the fact that my new bed turned up (fun to put together, doesn't have a huge dent in the middle from 20 years of use, and several inches longer than a normal bed so I can fit on it!) Eventually I collapsed and now feel even worse. My mum's hardly speaking to me, she's avoiding me like she always does when I'm miserable on the grounds that "talking to you wears me out" Thanks for your support. I am socially retarded and should not be allowed to be within any distance of normal, reasonable adults. I find myself again praying for death, but am too cowardly to do anything about it.

While it's probably going to be the case that I will have the house to myself next weekend, and it was certainly the case that I was thinking "wouldn't it be cool to have a party", I have to say that I don't think I will. I simply don't trust people not to spill liquids on the furniture, in particular the black sofa in the front room which marks really easily. More importantly, neither does my mum. Hers is not a grotty student house in which nothing matters.

I just noticed this post (give Google time to pick it up) In order to avoid making BDave look like a godawful moron I'd like to make it clear that it was posted before I finished writing and uploaded this article. Thank you.