My freakin BIRTHDAY was on Saturday. I turned 31 years old. I was not the least bit sad about it. That’s silly. The worst thing you can really say about the whole thing is that 31 is a boring number. Whatever! It’s just a stupid number!!

I woke up to a bunch of messages! I felt real cool that people had remembered me! And then I saw this:

Awwww!~! I love you, Monty~~

(The photostrip she posted, by the way, is on top of THE BOOK OF LAUGHTER AND FORGETTING, which I had recommended to her!!)

I got out of bed and made a cup of coffee and walked Dante. I felt very fine indeed!! In the backyard, beneath that WARM CALIFORNIA SUN, I remembered a dream I’d had the night before. I had dreamed up a little video I wanted to make, so I made it.

Laura and Joey and them came over, and we played a whole bunch of MARIO KART. We got firewood and wine, and so on, on account of the people who would be arriving later. The Traitor Joe’s cashier even gave me his discount cuz it was my birthday. At home I torched a bag of letters and bills and junk mail to get the fire going while Laura decorated my star cake (!) and made an enormous bowl of guacamole out of what she says are six of the most beautiful and perfect avocados she’s ever seen in her life. Lord! It was good. And yeah OK we had a fire, and drank a lot of wine, and many fine people I know showed up, and we got drunk and talked a whole bunch, and were even visited by the raccoon who has been haunting my backyard. Yeeeaaaahhh. That dude rules.

And I got some cool presents! Alayna got me a huge box of green tea and carved me a shooting star stamp and made me this cute letter that has a drawing of little Dante standing next to a normal-sized mushroom! . . . or is it normal-sized Dante and a huge mushroom?? Anyway it’s adorable. And Kelsey brought me purple star balloons and a CB Dictionary and, uh, she gave me her California Advance Directive form wherein she named me Power of Attorney ahead of the surgery she’s having next Monday! So I’m in charge of telling them to pull the plug in the extremely unlikely event that something goes wrong. That’s so sweet! (Thank you Kelsey. I promise I will do the right thing should this ever come to pass, and jesus lord it had better not!!)

Uh!

Here are photos some of the people In Attendance took and sent to me . . . mostly Laura Rokas and Brandon Sheffield! Look at the beautiful chocolate-strawberry cake Laura made for me! Look how cute everyone is playing MARIO KART! I’m wearing eyeliner! Dante and Laura are cute! I love that mushroom Alayna drew!! Those perfect avocados!!

Yes:

Later, after the fire had died down and people started going home, the few of us remaining walked on down to MISSOURI LOUNGE to keep on feeling those things we were feeling. I had brought the pepper gun with me—the pistol-shaped mace gun I had for some reason taken from the bathroom there a week and a half before. I handed it to the bartender and told her I was returning it. She laughed and shook my hand. Kelsey got me a shot and a beer and I sat down with my friends beneath the heat lamps. I looked around at everyone gathered there outside. I put my soul at hazard. I said to myself:

“OK.
I’LL BE
PART OF
THIS WORLD.”

. . . and got the hell on with the thing!! I have not quit it yet.

LISTEN: It was the best birthday I ever had in my whole life. Thanks for being so nice to me, my sweet little friends. God knows I love you!!!!! OK??? ☆彡