the day is approaching, it's sunday. birthdays are always miserable because i have this naive thought that it is the one day that people should truly show that they care. a day that people should make note to say hello and how are you doing, your special day. unfortunately, each year i think this and each year everyone forgets. my grandfather was the only person who was consistent in remembering to call me on my birthday, he died this year so i doubt he'll call. this year may be worse than the last because it's supposed to be a big birthday. 21. a day to get drunk off of your ass, but none of my friends have said anything about getting together. i know that i should stop bitching and if i want to do something take the initiative to get everyone together, but it makes me feel as if the purpose of feeling good about the day is defeated. happy birthday to me.

When you hit age 9, no one cares about your birthday. Sad but true.

Even I don't care about my birthday. I've entered it wrong on countless forms.

this year on my moms birthday i called my sister who lives closer to her than i do and asked what we were doing. she's like "oh i think moms cooking such and such" i thought that was sort of fucked up. making my mom cook her own birthday dinner. by the time i got over there she already had shit going so i at least helped her make it and set the table and shit. i read that in some culture they don't celebrate birthdays cause they see it as disrespectful to the mother who went through so much pain on that day.

In India, you don't have to go to work or school on your birthday. Enlightened. Now if they would only stop eating dogs. I went to a restaurant in Mombai and they had dog on the menu, then in brackets "poodle". I stole the menu and showed it to my dog, but he didn't laugh.

thats the funniest shit i've heard all day. thanks Cat. Ol Rover didn't find that shit funny huh?

Oh by the way. Happy Bithday Bell_jar. we can be rude motherfuckers in here sometimes.

I care Bell_jar,Happy Happy birthday.[but its best not to eat your neighbors dog on your special day,it makes for uneasy neighborly relations]

Yeah. Happy Birthday, Bell_jar. And sympathies. My 21st birthday was bad, too. I waited 8 hours for my girlfriend to show up, and when she did, we got in a big fight. Lame. Anyhow. Do you guys still get presents? Greedy as it may sound, it's always fun.

my roommate bought be a bus ticket to new york for my birthday.

The only person who ever seems to remember my birthday is Crimson. Oh, yeah, and a certain person (many years ago) who gave me a two-hour appointment with a prostitute as a present. Happy birthday!

Happy Birthday, BellJar! Regardless of what these guys say about you, I think you rock. I'll be turning 21 in 10 months. For some reason I think it's going to suck. My 20th was rather floppish. Honestly, I don't miss the big to-do around my younger birthdays. My mother would get some dig in about my various flaws... She always chose those days that should be the happiest to remind me of my faults. Still does.

happy birthday bell_jar!!! my birthday is tomorrow. i will be 27. i don't care if anyone gives a crap about it....every year i take the day off and eat cake and play outside and have a parade around the block with whoever is available. i insist on making it the biggest deal ever because every birthday is fucking great. hee hee he hee hee! yipee!!! so enjoy yourself! make your own birthday crown of paper and glitter, take yourself out, have a regal bath, dress up your pets, and go get some good presents.....

thanks Mavis. my birthdays six months away but suddenly i feel excited about it. i like the parade idea.

yeah. my first parade was back in michigan,, it had a lot of boys on bmx bike, dogs and people banging on every pot or pan we could muster! last year was even better. i had an evening bring your own cake party with about 20 people. we had a tuba, some drums, some tu tu's a banner and found some free tomato cages along the parade route. all my stuffy neighbors came out to watch, they even clapped!! i don't know what's up for tomorrow,but i am going to have an early am cake picnic at the nude beach to start the day out!!!!! then i am going to buy enough jelly bracelets to cover both arms. then i am goign to the photo booth at newberry's...i don't know what else.

happy birthday mavis. your parade idea does sound good. i have to work from seven until seven on my birthday, but i think i might try doing it after i get off of work. i'm also going to work on an ellaborate crown this week. how exciting. maybe my parade will do something to get arrested. that would be delightful.

yes yes yes! live it up, bell-jar! here's my advice though. CALL IN SICK!!!!!!!! it is the best gift you can give yourself.

Happy Birthday, Bell_Jar! I am definitely going to follow the parade and cake party and crown advice. funfunfunfunfun

a fucking parade. thats great. i'm glad i have some time to plan mine. i don't think i've ever met anyone who's had or even thought of having their own parade on their birthday. except maybe calvin and hobbes. a parade. i can't wait. i think the next person i know who has a birthday i'll suggest it to them, take pictures and post them somewhere. maybe with the Fetid-jr. cam.

yeah. i had my first parade when i turned 22 and was having a nervous breakdown. since then, i've decided to make each year more kick ass than the last one. i feel it working. i feel really happy and younger than one would expect. you know jay, parades aren't just for birthdays!!!!!

I found Mavis's e-mail address,what's yours bell- jar,can't send a card without one.

Parade. Good idea. I'm all over it. Maybe a naked midnight parade.

When I lived in Oregon,and the men-folk would go off on their elk hunting trips,[lots of money, seldom any elk],[which I wouldn't eat anyway],the girls would take out all of their guys tractors,and equipment and stuff we didn't really know how to use/operate,and we'd have one hell of a parade through town,we'd pull and drag stuff,it was dandy fun.Went on a couple of years,getting bigger and better each time,then the guys wised up,and started trying to incapicitate the machinery,so we couldn't use it----what butts.Parades are always fun!

my email address is atyson@eagle.cc.ukans.edu i feel kind of naked with it out there in the open.

Its nearly my birthday. i will be 25. I am frightened. every year since my 21st my bithday has sucked the big monkey. Seriously. My 21st my boyfriend got hammered so i put him in a taxi and sent him home, his friend Shane threw up under a table, I didnt get drunk because I was in pain from gallstones, grrrr the other years have been better altho last year (and I think its somewhere on the boards) my so called Sharon friend made me go to a strip club that had only women strippers. this year had better be good or I am banning all birthdays. fuckit

on my 20th birthday, one of my relatives thought she'd be innovative & put a new twist on the usual birthday cake ritual. she took a hostess ding-dong (you know, those little chocolate snack-cake thingies) & crammed 20 tiny candles in it...& lit them. when the candle flame touched the surprisingly flammable ding-dong (not to mention the tablecloth & curtains), the whole kitchen burst into flames. she was still in the corner warbling "happy birthday" in total fucking oblivion while the walls went up in a bright orange blaze. that's how my birthdays usually go.

Always the last to know... Verily, I wish unto thee the happiest of birthdays, Bell Jar. As the Irish say, 20 years of growing, 20 years at rest, 20 years declining, and 20 years when it doesn't matter if you're there or not. So now you can relax. :) My brother, aunt, and I used to have 3-person parades around our neighborhood when we (well, my brother and I) were little. We would grab pans and wooden spoons, and then beat them while marching up the street singing Yankee Doodle. Sometimes the kids in the neighborhood would join us. We should do that again.

And, before I forget, a very happy birthday to you, Mavis. Hmmm...I impart unto you this wisdom: Any man can laugh on a hillside. Think about it.

thank you , spider!

I dug holes on my birthday. A couple people said happy birthday when I told them it was my birthday. My parents called me. That's all that happened. Pretty lousy. I think I had ice cream and probably watched wraslin'. I don't remember what happened for my birthday last year, but I'm pretty sure I was intoxicated. The year before: same deal. Actually, I think the last time anything really special happened on my birthday that I can remember was right before I moved back to the UP, and a couple friends took me out to dinner and treated me to shots of Jagermeister. The same friends also threw me a huge going away party with kegs and a bonfire and everything, and I lost my suede jacket with the fringes that made me look like a hippy anyway. I guess the day doesn't mean a whole lot to me anymore, just another year closer to the grave, I suppose.

"The year before: same deal. " sem-didn't you spend the night in a funeral home that birthday?in marquette??

2 years ago the wife went wayyyyy overboard. my birhtday was on a tuesday, i get home and some friends are coming over so we can go out for drinks. i am standing on my patio waiting for folks to arrive, i see a limo pull up, at first i think yeahhhhhhh, but then i dismiss it as i recalled there is a limo driver in my neighborhood, probably on break or off work. then we are "going to the car" to go out and i see the wife run up and talk to the driver. i suspect she is trying to give him $10 to let us ride around for 15 minutes and smoke a joint. Duped again. He's there for us/me We get in, stocked bar, Jon Spencer on the cdplayer......we breeze it to LAX (45 min drive) to go to the space resturant called Encounters(if you have been to LAX you can't miss it, think Jetsons). Then we come back into hollywood to go to a strip joint, but not before stopping at good ole joes house to grab the his bag of hooch. ....great night..... THEN on friday, following, we are supposed to be doing some recording at a friends house........we had planned an all night session. what a great birthday week right....... I arrive and its a surprise party, complete with "space brownies", people I don't know and god knows how much beer. that was my 24th BD, 25th was uneventful, however i am expecting great things from 26 this year, i can feel it happy birthday to all, sorry im out of the loop!!!! i like your pot and pan idea spider, i admire your balls to be so silly in public. I wanna wear a strainer on my noodle!

Happy birthdays to Bell and Mavis. Hope they're lots of fun! This year, I had the endless birthday. I had wanted to throw a big party, but I had pneumonia all of January, so come February, I wasn't up to much. I had two friends over for dinner, cooked it myself, fresh pasta and homemade sauce, with wine out of my grandpa's cellar, a 69 Chiani. Mmmmm. then we went out for dessert. Then, over the course of the next couple of weeks, I had the extended birthday....dinner with the folks, brunch with a friend, dinner with another. It was perfect for how I was feeling. Last year, I had a few friends over for dinner, homemade chilli. We went to an auction beforehand, among other things, they were auctioning off a number of oriental rugs, and I came home with two, one modern, and one an antique pair of saddlebags. I almost came home with another, the cousin to my dining room rug, which I've had since I was two. That was only because I spied my friend Roger, and waved. Ooops! After all of that, all of my friends dropped by a local bar and pool hall, and we got a couple of tables on the top floor and shot pool and hung out until closing time. Dunno what I'm gonna do for thirty one.

i've been talking with my friends about a parade. everyone has just given me the "you're fucking crazy" look. so it may just be a one woman parade, which sounds interesting enough. i also want to throw candy, parades are no good unless candy is thrown

yeah i told some people about wanting to have a parade and got the same look. yeah, gotta throw candy. and maybe get some of those big dragon heads that the chinese wear during their parades. or shriners hats and go-karts.

my birthday isn't a big deal to me. I never tell people when it is, so I'm never dissapointed when they don't say happy birthday. other people's birthdays, however, are a Big Deal. I'm excited when my friends and family have birthdays. I want them to have fun and remember it always as a very special day. happy birthday, girls.

Parades are no fun where I grew up anymore. They don't throw candy. They used to, but one of the floats going 2 miles an hour managed to roll over a small boy going after some poorly-thrown candy. Parades there are weird and quiet. Very calm and mechanical. No candy. Parades where I live now are loud, festive, candy-filled and endless. They're awsome. EVERYONE goes. I love this town.

last parade i went to was during mardi gras. it was just a small day parade, not one of the big nighttime affairs, but i had a fucking blast. caught so much shit off the floats you can't even believe it. a pack of cards thrown off one of the floats hit my husband square in the chest & nearly knocked the wind out of him. when i was a little kid in montana, they used to have cool parades. lots of candy & other throws. also really amazing ice sculptures. but the coolest thing, to me, was this huge iron cauldron. they used to put coins in it, mixed w/ snow. then they dumped it out from a height & hundreds of little kids would dive into the pile of snow, fishing for dimes. i don't have too many happy childhood memories, but that's one of them.

Where in Montana did they do this? The eerie, sad parades take place in Billings, while the happy ones are in Missoula.

it was either in kalispell or whitefish, somewhere in that area. it was decades ago.

This crazy town has the god-awful Mummers' parade every year. I think being a Mummer is a guys-only deal. I guess it takes balls to wear frilly costumes and dance badly down the street.

What the hell is a mummer?

Here's a good description of their activities Here is a picture of a happy Mummer Other than that, I don't know. It's a mystery to me, too.

thanks for all the sweet birthday wishes! i had a fanatastic day yesterday.i got up at 6 with wendy and we went to the best place for pancakes then i took her to work, went home and fell back asleep. then at 10, my other roomies and i went to our friend blake's farm where we picked plums and apples and said hello to all the sheep and tiny banty chickens. then we went to the deserted beach and had a NAKED BIRTHDAY PARADE!!!!!! plus a picnic and swimming. then we went to another place and picked our own flowers. then we drove back to town and picked up my cake. then we went out for surprise ethiopian food. i ate until i couldn't move! mmmmm! then we went back home for cake and presents... holy shit, i feel like the luckiest lady alive!!! 27 feels incredible.... p.s. if people can't understand the fun of a parade, they are not living at full potential. shrug them off and have fun anyway!

Now, a naked birthday parade sounds like it would be fun. Unfortunately, i'm pretty sure none of my friends would be down with that. Sigh... I must need new friends. Anyone know where I can find some naked parade friends? I suppose it could just be my S/O and me... But if that happened, we wouldn't get much parading done.

hey- if you call it a parade, then it's a parade...... hee hee

Happy (belated?) birthday Bell Jar! Personally, I don't care much for my birthday. It always seems to be at a bad time of year, no matter what stage of life, so I've learned not to notice it's passing. Then there are people whose birthday I remember and make a special point of celebrating in my own way (normally by sending something), but these people don't seem to return the thought. Just as well, I suppose. I hope that your birtday ended up better than you expected, and enjoy your trip to NYC!

the birthday isn't until sunday, but today there were celebrations. one of my jobs bought me muffins and sang happy birthday to me. i got paid. i got a card from my grandmother (i ripped it open hungrily for the money i knew was in it, it just said some mushy grandma stuff, no money. better than no card at all. my damn great aunt told us the other week that she never sends her grandchildren cards or money, i'm going to kick her ass for planting the idea in my grandma's head.) so it was a good day. i will have to remember it on sunday when i think that no one remembered.

Oh, yeah, that birthday I remember. That was my Drunk Punk Birthday. Ever have one of those moments when yuo have to stop and remember a time in your life that was truly great and probably the high point of your life, only at the time you didn't know it as so great?

Yum. I want pancakes. I think I'll go make some. I wonder if I have any fruit--oh, blackberries. My neighbors already think I'm nuts. Surely wandering around naked in my back yard at 1:47am picking blackberries won't alter their opinions of me. Yum. Pancakes.

my friends have warmed to the idea of a parade, and we will parade down a busy street tomorrow evening throwing candy and driving our cars made of boxes, attached by ropes, looking like shriners. i'm very happy. today when b came in to relieve me at work he brought me a birthday present. he told me he has another one for me, but it will have to wait until tomorrow. he thought of me on my birthday. he thought of me on any day. this is super exciting as i have a huge crush on him, and i wasn't sure that he was interested. we're going to go see x-men this week. he even wrapped the present. this wouldn't seem like much but i've only known him for a month. ahhh b. giddy is a good thing. my mother called today, i was sure it was for a birthday well wisher, but no i think she has forgotten. she wanted to tell me what a rotten child i was for not quiting my life and moving home to be with her.

Happy birthday, Bell_jar. The pancakes were tasty.

do you have a parade license?

fuck that, it's such an infringement of human rights. I hate "permits" to parade or assemble in any way. oh, happy birthday Bell_jar.

I got arrested once for demonstrating against a law that effectively banned demonstrating. They changed the law after a while, because they found it increased the number of demonstrations by tenfold.

Belated Happy Birthday, Bell_jar. I hope nobody rained on your parade.