Today marks the 30 year anniversary of me, Juli Crockett.

Some feel it to be a most heinous egoism to celebrate the day of birth, (such as the Witnesses of Jehovah) a relic of ancient false religions. False idols. Perhaps, perhaps. Today, however, I will celebrate the Miracle of Miracles: I am still alive.

There is a great absurdity surrounding this particular age-leap. Thirty is already 3 years past my life-expectancy.* Never did I think I would BE this person. I woke up this morning in a suburb of Los Angeles, made coffee at home (in order to “beat the system” and bypass Starbucks), and I carpooled to work with my boyfriend in a white Toyota Camry. Just the other day I was called by a local college to interview for a teaching position. What happened?

It is horrifying, yet exciting; a threshold/crossroads/turning point marking the transition to another dimension; the day after yesterday, the day before tomorrow, just another day in the life. No big deal, yet something special. Good lord I wish I could say something profound and poetic about this whole thing. Unfortunately, I’m feeling a lot simpler than that about it. Like a kid at Christmas, I’m giddy with the knowledge that at least one of my friends has reported that they have gotten me an actual present. How cool is that? PRESENTS!!! Simply for not dying, yet.

For the first time in a great, great many years I am having a birthday party. Returning to the last joint where it felt right. The party will go down at Chuck E Cheese's, that glorious hole in which a kid can still be a kid. At my dear friend Steve Diet Goedde's 40th Birthday Bash I maxed out the scoring capabilities of Whack-a-Mole. I am hoping not to disappoint tonight, for in the intoxicating grip of Hubris I have challenged many a pal to a contest. Skee-Ball has never been one of my strengths; however, I do plan to roll those wooden balls. My fingers are crossed that they have air-hockey & the photo ride with the Chuck E. replica is working. It is only a quarter for a digital picture with the infamous rat. What a deal!

It is always easy to see the things that I don’t have. Every birthday brings a pang of remorse that I wasn’t born a child prodigy, that I have not yet created a recognized masterpiece, and that I do not possess the perfect body. Ah, well. Fortunately, today, I don’t want to BE that person, either, whoever that mentally projected ideal of me may be. I am content with there here/now me. My life is a candy store, and I’m in it, eating up the sweet life three years after I thought it’d be over. I’m grateful for all the possibilities, all the progress, all the unknowns.

In other news, on Friday my band I’m blessed to be in, The Evangenitals, has been hired to play for the local Leisure Club organization. As far as we’re concerned, this is the coolest gig a band could be asked to perform, and we’re giving it the mad photo/film coverage. With any luck, we’ll be able to salvage a music video from the event. Who knows when on earth will we ever have the opportunity to play for a room full of senior citizens? Hells bells, if this goes well, we hope to get recommended to Leisure Clubs nationwide so we can do a tour of banquet halls, chapels, and bingo joints.

*I always said I would drink myself to death by 27 years of age.
Miraculously, at 26, I stopped drinking, and thusly I live on today.
Glory be.