all day tomorrow i will be celebrating my 28th birthday by drinking terrible beer and watching (what i think are) akira kurosawa’s best movies. dante will be there. i also have 150 teabags and a lot of coffee left over. i will be barricading the front door around 2 p.m. EST—but if you get here before then you can hang out with me and dante and drink tea and / or coffee and watch akira kurosawa’s best movies with us. this is my “birthday party.”

here’s how to get to my house: step over the sinners writhing in the icy slush in the third circle of hell, have phlegyas ferry you across the river styx, make a left at the sealed gates of the doomed city of dis and keep walking. a bunch of demons are going to hassle you but just ignore them. once you hit the seventh circle approach a flaming tomb and tell the heretic inside that you know me and he’ll lead you through the forest of suicides to where i’m camping out (watch out for harpies).

here’s a map if you get lost:

listen: i don’t like birthday presents. i don’t like my birthday. i don’t even like myself.

and after moving across the country three times, i have halved my belongings just as many times. the only furniture i own is a mattress, a desk, and an apple crate i use as a bedside table. i have thirty or so Really Good books and a lamp. so i don’t like stuff!!!

BUT: uh . . . if you really feel like getting me something . . . uh . . . i wouldn’t turn you down if you wanted to get me “another green world” on vinyl. . . .

anime sweatdrop

a good man once told me that in the battle between hard and heavy, heavy always wins.

i don’t think those were his exact words

yeah tell me about it, city of manassas.

well i just turned 28 and i fell face-first into a huge pile of snow while trying to put a package that i had got guacamole on into a UPS drop off box so that’s what my life looks like right now

i can’t imagine a better way to celebrate 28 years on this earth: hanging out alone 20 minutes before closing in a deserted grocery store that hasn’t been updated since 1989

i think i saw the grim reaper in the dry pasta aisle so i’m going to surrender my hands to him and hopefully he’ll put me in handcuffs and take me home

and if he doesn’t want me, i’ll proceed with my original plan, which is to drive to a barren frozen field on the street where i grew up and stare into total darkness while dipping tortilla chips into a tub of guacamole that had a football on the box.

you should see me when i’m driving, i am so calm

for whatever it’s worth, probably not much, i will be 28 years old in one hour

it is likely that i am dead, and my punishment for . . . whatever . . . is to be trapped for all eternity in my hometown, which is populated by cardboard automatons who hate me

anyway: my hometown is a cultureless black hole where people go grocery shopping at gas station convenience stores and the olive garden parking lot is always full

here is a strange thing i have noticed: every time i park in a lot, there is always someone just sitting in their parked car next to me staring at their phone while eating a hot dog or a sandwich

i’m serious