Today is my birthday. I'm thirty-four. That's nearly three-and-a-half decades of awesome under my belt.
Hmmm... No wonder my belt is so big.
So, what does it mean to be this old? I have absolutely no idea. So far, it means I had to renew my license and treat myself to a coffee. Next, I have to check my Facebook birthday greetings. Well, if I have any. Steve Martin doesn't think so.
See, I had a dream a couple of nights ago that I lived in an apartment building and Steve Martin was my landlord. I mean, he was still Steve Martin, but he had retired from acting and entered the glamourous world of property management.
I spent a lot of my time trying to make Imaginary Steve Martin like me. Maybe because I'm a fame whore. Maybe because he's the guy I was paying rent to. Maybe because I still have a lingering 1980's "All of Me" crush on him lingering in my subconsciousness twenty-something years later. Whatever the case, he was always doing stuff around the building - watering the plants, painting the hallways - and I was desperately trying to have a friendly conversation at every opportunity, to no avail. He was curt and a little snobby; not what I pictured him to be.
Then, one fine midday, I walked out of the building to see him supervising the installation of a privacy fence. He said "Hey, Maven! Happy birthday!"
"Thanks, Mr. Martin!" I smiled happily. What a jolly good bloke. He wasn't a bastard after all! Maybe we could be Facebook friends. I would find his personal account and add him. He would accept my friend request - probably. Most likely. Maybe if I got him drunk first.
Steve started flipping through papers on a clip board like all important people do. "I hope you get some Facebook wall posts today."
What an odd thing to say, I thought to myself. Of course I would get a lot of wall posts. Hello? I'm The Maven?
I gave him an odd smile. "Thanks."
Not taking his eyes off the clipboard, he replied "Because as of right now, you don't have any. And it's already noon."
Never mind that a highly successful comedic movie star was now my hardhat-wearing landlord. Never mind that he somehow had access to, or knowledge of, my supposedly private social networking page. At that moment, neither of those things were relevant to me. All that mattered as I made my way back inside the building and toward my apartment, is that it was midday on September 1st and not a single person had wished me a happy birthday. No one? Not even my own mom? Was the internet broken? Yes, surely the internet was broken. That was the only logical explanation.
You know how dreams go. I spent what seemed like an eternity trying to get to my computer. Absolutely every hurdle imaginable was thrown my way to slow me down: a broken elevator, a closed hallway, very chatty neighbours... but I finally got to my laptop and was in the process of logging into my Facebook account when-- my alarm went off. And it was the first day of school. And Gutsy was standing next to me with a big smile on his face, and I had to get up and make toast. Dammit!
I could picture that arrogant moustached ex-comedian snickering into his clipboard because I would never know now, would I? And, worse, I actually cared about my stupid Facebook wall enough to have a dream about it.
At noon today, as I was wrapping up a kick ass morning of breakfast and bookstore with my very cute three-year-old birthday date, I checked in on Facebook to see if, you know, people like me.
I learned a few important things:
1. I need therapy, because apparently my self-worth partially depends upon whether or not people say hello to me on a virtual wall, and,
2. People like me, a lot. Oh, and,
3. Imaginary Steve Martin can bite me