I'm wearing 29 like it's going out of style.

That's it.  I've wiped my hands of it.  I'm done with it and I'm not looking back.  28 can kiss my ass goodbye.  What the hell good did it do me anyway, besides getting me that much closer to 29?  And now it's just a slippery slide down to 30.  Sneaky bastard, 28.  You told me we were in it together, until the end.  And then you go and ditch me, like last year's birthday.  You lying sack of 365 days,  I didn't much care for you anyways!

So, dammit, it's my birthday.  Birthmorn.  Technically I don't know exactly what time I was born off of the top of my ever-graying head, but it happened on the 22nd of December.  And as of now it's sometime past midnight, making it that fated day, that glorious day, that day that the collective spirit of the World expressed some flatulence that coalesced into the form of the skinny kid that became the slightly less skinny kid that is me. 

It's my birthday!  I'm 29. Correction:  I have completed 29 years of life and am now barreling one minute at a time into my 30th year.  I'm well on my way.  I'm already stacking up the seconds that will inexorably pile up into the minutes that will callously add into the hours that will shamelessly become the 365 days (already less than 365 days as I type) that will make me 30 years old.  

Eek!

It's not really that big of a deal, I suppose.  They say that you are really only as old as you feel.  And though I don't know what credentials gives "them" the right to say the things that "they" say, I feel that there's a kernel of truth to that.  I really do believe that how you approach life truly affects your mental health, directly affecting your physical health.  And reader, if you know me then you know that I am far from "adult," far from sophisticated, far from bitter, jaded, or malcontent.  If you know me then you know that I like a good laugh.  You know that I like to play pranks.  You know that, despite the fact that I am clothed, not cloven hooved, and missing some horns and a pan flute, that I much relate to that merry-making, ne'er-do-well, demi-god, Pan himself.  You know, therefore, that I am a soul that is out to suck the marrow out of life and to enjoy, or at least appreciate, every last moment. 

So here I am, barely 29, already contemplating 30, and yet still quite youthful in spirit (not that 29 is old by any means.  Far from it!).  I'm consistently told that I don't quite look my age, that I appear to be on the younger end of the 20th decade of my life.  And this, I think, is directly related to that youthful spirit.  I'm constantly amazed by people that I meet that are younger than me, and yet appear years my senior.  Their relatively few years hang on their faces as a mask of a short life of stress and unhappiness.  And though I know that I have been blessed with a fairly good lot in life, and have therefor had more to smile about and less to frown over, I know that these lawyers, stock brokers, and otherwise prosperous folks could find more to be happy about in their lives.  Life, after all, really is just one large prank.  We start in diapers, spend a lifetime of living, loving, and learning, gaining wisdom and experience, only to end back up in diapers.  Show me the justice of that.  So what else can we do but laugh?  Laugh through life, enjoy your good health while you have it, and don't waste time allowing the small things to affect you so much that your youth is taken from you prematurely.  

So as I sit in this coffee shop, watching the skiers go by (it's been snowing for well over a week in Portland, and we now have over a foot of snow) down the street, on this, my birthday, I'm forced to reconcile with 29.  Maybe we can be friends.  Maybe we can learn to live with each other, 29 and I.  Maybe 29 won't be so ready to abandon me to 30 the way that 28 left me for 29.  Or then again, maybe I should just preemptively make peace with 30 and hope that it'll put in a good word for me with 31.  

Regardless, it's my birthday.  I just hope that the cake doesn't melt under all of those candles.  

Santa! I've beaten your game...

Kids need a reason to behave.  God knows that I did.  Well, I still do.  But fortunately, or not, I have responsibilities like a gargantuan (for a lowly dj such as myself) rent to keep me from straying too far into a delinquent lifestyle.  But regardless of my criminal tendencies, the fact remains that most people are, at their essence, good.  And there are reasons for their better-than-my-own behavior.  Some call it religion.  Some call it the village raising a child.  My communications professor would call it a transference of culture.  Southerners call it "I'm gonna learnya a lesson!"  I call it Santa.  

Santa, that bearded, jolly, gift-giving symbol of "behave, or else!"  Santa, that self-appointed judge and jury of who's naughty and who's nice, that fodder for children's stories, that deceptively like-able fellow who has the final say over whether or not you receive gifts or a stocking full of coal...  Who gave you that power anyways, fat guy?

For ages this over weight candidate for a heart-attack has been the symbol of what kept most kids in line throughout the year.  Want that new huffy bike?  Better keep your grades up!  Love that new Clay Aiken CD?  Keep being nice to your lecherous little sister!  Want to get a hold of that Wii?  Better stop stealing valium from mommy!  Have your eye on that shiny new Red Rider Bee-bee gun?  Ah!  You'll shoot your eye out, kid!  

The idea of Santa keeping an eye on each and everyone of us, tirelessly catching all of our wrong-doings, and all of our rights, is sinisterly reminiscent of 1984 and Big Brother, The Lord of the Rings and the Eye of Sauron, the Smurfs and Gargamel.  Ok, maybe not that latter, but you get my meaning.  Santa represents the idea of an omniscient being with the power to rip away the joy from the most important day in a kids life and replace it with a dirty sock full of coal.  

Now, despite the overall tone thus far of this posting, I'd like to submit that I am a complete sap when it comes to Christmas.  Hard to believe! I know.  But the truth of the matter is that I own Holiday Inn, White Christmas, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, The Elf, A Christmas Story, Charlie Brown's Christmas, The Grinch, and Polar Express.  Yes, I'm a complete cheese-ball.  Go ahead and yuck it up.  But here's the thing:  I love the spirit of Christmas.  I love the idea of spreading unconditional love, joy, peace, and happiness.  I love the damned sappiness of the cheesiest of Christmas songs (with the exception of Last Christmas, by Wham!.  Want to see that vein on my forehead stick out and throb?  Play that song.  I dare you.  I'll show Santa naughty...).  But, more than anything else, even more than the well being of my own ego, most of what I love about Christmas is my family.  And I love what Christmas stands for, in the context of family.  In essence, I do love Christmas.  Hell, I'm writing this blog by the lights of my Charlie-Brown-esque Christmas tree that I picked out from the field myself! (my friend Robin likened the chopping of the little guy to an abortion.  How's that for holiday cheer?) 

So why the tirade against Jolly Ol' St. Nick?  To be honest, I have no good reason except for my own misgivings for having played by his rules for so long.  Why, in the name of Pete (who is this Pete guy anyways?), would I waste so many opportunities for misguided, good-old-fashioned fun, just to appease the Christmas Dictator?  Why did I pass up all of those terribly tempting opportunities for mischief?  For stuff!  That's why!  I wanted stuff.  And what do we do when we want stuff in America?  We get it.  Just ask all of those McDonald-eating, Judge Judy-watching, I-got-into-a-car-wreck-and-want-my-money-now patriotic souls what we do when we want stuff.  We get it.  And ironically, somehow Santa is where it all starts.

So what do I say to you, Big Guy?  Here's what:  One full year, 365 days and nights, full of all the trouble my twisted brain can think of is well worth that measely, dirty, dingy, stinky stocking full of coal (I'll sell it to the train yard) that you give me in return.  

I'm going to Vegas.