twelve ten eighty-one

I know I never remember your birthday, it is very likely that I never will. Even when the pharmacist asks me my daughter's birthday I draw a big blank, then I start repeating the three numbers over and over like I have turrets. I know that Joan of Arc was burned at the stake for heresy on May 30th, and I know that Mortal Monday falls on September 13th, Monday or not. But I'm not going to remember yours, even if you're just seven weeks older than me and we go over this every year.

But we're not talking about your birthday here.

We're talking about mine.

More specifically we're talking about the tribute you'll make to my existence, a small token you'll present to me, for having touched your life, for better of worse. You'll have to coordinate among yourselves to see who brings what, I'm not doing everything.

1. Pepperidge Farms Orange Milano Cookies

2. Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream

3. Samuel Adam's Latitude 48


4. Captain America on DVD (not blu ray)

5. The Glamour of Grammar: A Guide to the Magic and Mystery of Practical English, by Roy Clark

6. An Idea

7. A book of U.S. postage stamps

8. Leonardo, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle keychain (Spencer's)

9. Biscotti cookies

10. Look around your home for something you wouldn't save in a fire, and give it to charity

11. A poem about me

12. A picture with you and me that I didn't know existed

13. You Shall Know Our Velocity, by Dave Eggers (the copy I loaned out, not a new one)

14. The Crow, by J. O'Barr

15. Pilotwings Resort for the 3DS

16. Have a dream about me

17. A drawing of me

18. Blue Agave Nectar

19. The remastered Dark Side of the Moon

20. Develop some of the film I have in this drawer

21. House slippers

22. a G. I. Joe comic from a yard sale or flea market.

23. A Yankee candle that smells like laundry

24. A violin

25. A superhero pint glass

26. Violin lessons.

27. Hickory Farms Summer Sausage

28. Kraft Extra Sharp Cheese

29. Water crackers

30. The Making of The Empire Strikes Back: the Definitive Story, by J. W. Rinzler


That's thirty things, people. You have ten days.