happy birthday to me

After a week that had me sleeping about 17 hours from noon Tuesday to 4am Sunday, culminating in a double-shift, I celebrated my birthday by sleeping for about 13 hours. Those hours were a multi-faceted gift, for not only did I benefit from the excellent regenerative properties of sleep, I also benefited from the excellent regenerative properties of dream. In short, that...was awesome. You'd be hard-pressed to find drugs that could equal a trip like that, let alone surpass it (I have pressed hard, though, and found some intriguing competitors, but that's another story for a less...public time). I spent most of the rest of my b-day working a "tweener" shift (730pm to 330am, not really a swing, not quite a grave...gotta love the newspaper biz). Oh, and I ate toast and watched the latest episode of BSG (Battlestar Galactica, for the uninitiated). And I showered (trust me, an important gift to myself and those around me).

But perhaps the most important aspect of my 31st was this: I spent it alone. My roommate was out of town, enjoying the best that Canada had to offer, so I even had the apartment to myself. It surprised me a little to realize how...perfect, it felt. Right. Of course, I was buoyed by an impressive number of texts, attempted phone calls (being unconscious and working on loud machines tends to inhibit one's ability to converse) and Facebook messages. Two people even sang Happy Birthday to me on my voicemail, which was sweet (you know who you are...thank you :). All in all, my birthday was a reminder of and a dedication to two things:

1. I am myself.
2. I am not alone.

What more could one ask for? What more could one want?