we are not, however, going to have any more birthday parties. you know that childhood geek fear of having a birthday party and having no one show up? such was saturday night. the excuses were all valid – parents in town, hot date with the new girl, tickets to see a show, stuck in rehearsal, down with a bad cold, hosting another birthday party, boyfriend visiting, have to be up early for easter services – but it doesn’t negate the fact that only one of my friends actually showed up. luckily, andy’s friends can always be depended upon to materialize at the mention of PBR and the opportunity to sit around rehashing scenes from last week’s improv class, so we didn’t lack for guests. but really, i think this is just a grown-up symptom of a life-long affliction of social ineptitude. in junior high school the girls passed mean notes about me, as an adult i have inconvenient parties. i was always better with 3 close friends and a bottle of wine, maybe a scrabble board. i think in the future we’ll stick to what we know.

far-away friends: you are missed.

turning 26 turned out to be a rather pleasant experience – the day was punctuated with calls and cards from distant but dear friends, and there were a dozen roses and a dinner date waiting for me when i got home from work. coincidentally, the birthday also included an unexpected raise at my day job, and an offer for a new stage management gig.

the high occurance of gifts featuring tiger-striped cats (3 paper cards, 1 e-card and 1 painting) was enough to give one pause, however. do i talk about my cat too much? am i becoming a cat lady?

a new-found sarcastic pleasure: commemorative stamps. for example: the state of idaho, which is refunding me $128 in taxes, got the frog and the turtle stamps (the frog cause he’s cute and green, like money, and the turtle because it could take till July before I actually see any refund money). the feds and the state of illinois, however, were mailed with the scarlet king snake and the reticulate collared lizard stamps, because that’s how i feel about owing all those taxes. so nya.

anyone out there familiar with the nyc band Betty? tell me more.

just when i’ve finally got time to write to slithy tove, my hosting company goes down, taking slithy tove and my email server with it. and, since i set my company’s web site up with the same host earlier this year, also no work email. earthlink’s DNS server or whatever can’t even find an entry for the parent company. not a good sign. it’s like going to mail a letter and discovering that the entire post office is gone. disturbing, how much of a void something that doesn’t actually have a physical presence can still leave in its absence.

and speaking of mail, lately i wonder if my junk mail is trying to tell me something. i keep getting “welcome to the neighborhood” postcards (thank you, People’s Gas and Commonwealth Electric, for selling my personal information) from a) renters’ insurance companies and b) doctors and hospitals. do they know something i don’t know? an apartment fire is imminent? my appendix is hovering just this side of septic?

three cheers for paul, who tracked down the source of that nagging javascript error which has plagued slithy tove for the past year or two. i just haven’t had the patience for such things, well, really, ever. this is why i fled from the life of a coder. when i get home, exhausted, at midnight, and still want to talk about theatre – then i know i’m in the right profession.

okay, so i came late to friendster (as in, yesterday). it’s just no one ever invited me, see. but now i see value of friendster – it’s the true friendship (oops, almost wrote fiendship) test. looking up lauren and clicking to add her to my personal network, i had to click through the following warning messages:

You are about to add lauren as a friend.

ok, got it.

lauren will be notified, and will have to confirm that you are friends. Your full name and email address will be sent to lauren for identification purposes if you proceed.

yeah, okay. are you trying to tell me something, friendster?

Continue only if you really are friends with lauren.

come on, friendster what about that time i drew on her armpit with a magic marker? doesn’t that count for anything?

well, okay. we shall wait anxiously to have our overture of digital friendship confirmed.

from the American Association of Aikido handbook:

Rule 6: All Aikido arts are secret in nature and are not to be revealed publicly, nor taught to rogues who will use them for evil purposes.

that’s right. so back off, all ye rogues.

lately i’ve been struggling with an apoplectic fear of fiction writing. the more i try, the more i wonder how i could presume to have the authority to know what it is to be someone else. how do i know what winter wind feels like on the face of someone else? the taste of ginger on a stranger’s tongue? the things that make them feel irrationally sad, happy, angry? all of my attempts at fictitious characters are really just extensions of myself, and that feels like a lie, too. here on slithy tove i struggle on a daily basis to process my own convoluted existence – imagining what it is to be another person is like trying to picture in my mind a color i’ve never seen before. incomprehensible, the closer you look.

and yet, other people write wonderful fiction without having an existential crisis. what’s my problem?

i checked the experation date on the milk carton this morning. it said FEB 30. does that mean it’ll never go off?

leap day graced chicago with the first 50+ degree temperatures we’ve seen since october. i know it’s just a cruel tease, as winter is rumored to last until may around these parts, but a temporary lightening of the cold is so good for the psyche. walking to work i kept tucking my hands into my sleeves against a vague, nagging sensation until i realized: i’m just unused to the feel of cool fresh air on my hands, they’re so used to being encased in mittens. chicagoans celebrated the weather by breaking out all the fashions of summer: shorts, tank tops, miniskirts that have been taunting spring in the windows of trendy shops got their first outting, exposing goose-bumped but determined winter-white legs.

congratulations to vienna teng on the release of her new album, Warm Strangers. we have limited experience with being friends with someone who is now a famous rock star. what exactly is the etiquette for attending her chicago gigs? should i get in line with the other fans to have my album autographed? can i cut in line? come early, stay late, regale everyone with stories of i-knew-her-way-back-when? throw underwear? vienna, of course, wears fame beautifully; the social awkwardness is all of my own creation. maybe when she becomes super famous and embarks on her full-band european tour she’ll let me be the stage manager.