They Say It's [My] Birthday...

I just changed the name of my blog to 62 and Counting, even though it took an inordinate amount of time and energy to remember how to do this, because at 1:10 a.m. I will be turning a year older (and a whiter shade of pale).

62. Sounds old. Sounds even. Sounds like icky-poo. Sounds about right.

I guess this means I can stop lying at the movie theater kiosk, where I like to buy my tickets because I can click the “senior” button and pay less (ah, baby, that’s-a what I like). Just think, even though I’m not senior enough to get a reduced fare bus (or New York subway) pass, I will be in three more years, giving me something new to look forward to. So, look out, Cleveland…

When people ask me about my birthday, I usually tell them that it’s the same day as Hitler’s. Now that I’m turning a year older, I’ve decided to try and act a bit less obnoxious (yeah – right), so I Googled April 20th birthdays to find out who(m) I share this day with, other than Adolf. I discovered that Juan Miro (one of my favorite artists), Senor Wences (“S’all right? S’all right”), Lionel Hampton, Tito Puente, Edie Sedgwick (oh, boy, does this mean I’m only six degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon?), Carmen Electra (my brother will be happy about this one), Jessica Lange, Luther Vandross, Stephen Colbert (my sister will also be happy, since she’s always asking me if I watch his show), and way, way too many cricket and football players were also born on my birthday.

I’m also proud to share this day with all of my pot-smoking doper friends around the world (except in France, where they celebrate on June 18th), who will be lighting up a doobie to celebrate a day that Wikipedia calls “counterculture” but I call let’s go get stoned.

I won’t be smoking a joint, but I will be celebrating part of the day by chowing down on a 9-course tasting menu at On20, my favorite Hartford restaurant. I’ll spend the rest of the day gaining back all the weight I’ve tried to lose over the past week via the South Beach Diet (yeah, I porked up again), cursing my husband (who took off the day to celebrate with me - thank you, sweetie) for subjecting me to his idea of the perfect birthday present: food, glorious food, and enjoying the calls and emails from friends and family that (I hope) will trickle in, one by one.

In the words of my favorite band on earth, “it’s my birthday, too…” so I’m gonna have a good time! Oh me, oh my.