Thursday, February 25, 2010

♫ ♫ Happy Birthday to me ♫ ♫


Hi guys,

  Okay it's officially my birthday this time.  (Last week I prepared a draft and thought I had saved it, but it posted instead). DOH!

  Apparently I suffered a case of premature postulation.  Happens to men sometimes as they get older.

So my apologies to those of you whom I messed up. The good thing though is that this means in some cases I get double birthday wishes. And as someone who looooves attention I consider this to be a very good thing indeed.

  Anyway.  Today is my big day, the twentieth anniversary of my twenty-fifth birthday.  Yup, I'm forty-five and I can't frikkin' believe it!  But no worries, in my heart and mind I'm mid/late twenties and could hang with any one of you.  Try me, I double-dog dare ya.
M'kay, on to my post.


I should write a book about my life." 
Sooner or later you're going to hear an older person say this. The term 'older' is relative of course, but I've usually heard this from seniors. I always roll my eyes whenever I hear it, to me it's always seemed rather presumptuous to believe anyone would find your life interesting enough to buy a book about it. But in reality I think many people are just surprised they've made it this far when they look back at all the close calls and stupid things they've done.

Why do I say this? Because some days I reflect on my life and wonder how I managed to make it this far. Like most of us I spent my teens and twenties feeling somewhat invincible and I've had my share of stupid.  There are numerous reasons I may not have made it as far as I have...

Close calls. I fondly remember the day I blew a tire at 70mph and almost lost my car while rounding the bend of a two-lane highway on-ramp, the same one I had been taking every night for years. Just a few weeks before that I had attended a performance driving weekend.  I'm sure that's what helped save me, plus someone was just plain looking out for me.

Bad decisions. Several summers ago a bird decided it wanted to nest on the security light in our carport (garage). She was persistent, so I put a towel above it to keep her away during the day and removed it in the evenings. It worked well for a while until the night I forgot to take it down, creating an electrical short which incinerated the towel. If it wasn't made of synthetic material this would have caused a house fire. To make matters worse it was my in-laws' home.  Not a great way to make an impression.

Pushing it. There were things I did to intentionally push the envelope. Like having sex on the edge of a cliff, or while driving. (I don't remember seeing them listed but I'm pretty sure they'd fall under the category of unsafe practices). Would I do it again?  Oh hell yeah.

The wrath of mom. My mother nearly murdered me a few times when I was younger. Like the time I decided I was going to chop down our birch tree on the front lawn when I was about seven. (The back of a hammer makes a great axe, or so I thought). Then there was the day my brother and I took home snakes that we had captured. My mom found out about them when one popped its head out of a sock as she was doing laundry. Apparently we didn't secure them well enough.
I'm not sure how I made it to my next birthday.
There were also things she never found out about, like the day my brother and I rode our bikes on the shoulder of a major highway in Toronto. I was about ten and she still doesn't know. Unless she's reading this post.  Fortunately I weigh too much now for her to put me over her knee.

Hmm. After looking back on this stuff, "I think I should write a book about my life." lol
                                          _______________

 For anyone who's willing, please let me know when your birthday is so I can mark it down!


 
 

 
 

 
      

23 comments:

  1. You brought snakes home???? You almost incinerated your inlaws house?? That car accident my god! Okay somehow you got wayy cooler to me from reading this post! HAPPY BIRTHDAY Barry!!!!!!! If you wrote a memoir I would love to have an copy. You should, really you should & have a section in it for your lyrics & poetry. I love hearing about the random stories people have!! I reallly hope you have a great birthday!! Paint Toronto red today! Happy Happy Birthday!!! *hugs*

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  2. Happy happy birthday my dear friend. Go write your memoir and do send me a copy. Wishing you all the best! xoxo

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  3. Ahhhhhh -- HAPPY BIRTHDAY BARRY! Let me sing to you, because I like doing this for my friends:
    HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU
    HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU
    HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR BARRY
    HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU! :)

    ...and, uh, sex on the edge of a cliff?! Crazy! I'd be way too scared to die to enjoy that! HaHa.

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  4. Happy Birthday! :D
    You should totally write a book about yourself.. even if it's just for kicks!

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  5. Happy Birthday!!!!!

    I'm gonna go ahead and agree with everyone else - a book sounds like a great idea!

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  6. Happy Birthday!!!

    Books sounds like a great idea. You are a good writer... i guess you know that by now :P.

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  7. Please, please, please write a book about your life, Barry! You're such an amazing writer, you have hilarious stories, and you have such a personal, cute way of telling them. Seriously, do it.

    And, of course: Happy birthday! I mailed you a greeting earlier this week but since I haven't snail mailed anything in ten years, I didn't realize how LONG it was going to take to reach you. So...it's going to be a little late. Lol. Ah well, that just means you will have to celebrate your birthday all over again when you receive it! ;) No, really. You have to.

    I hope you have the most amazing day EVER! May it be filled with laughter, delicious cake, warm weather (too soon to hope?), and love.

    xoxoxoxo!!

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  8. happy birthday barry!! i hope you have a wonderful day.

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  9. HaPpY BiRtHdAy! Thanks for stopping by my blog...and thanks for the post idea!
    Sex on a cliff? How in the hell did you do that?

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  10. Happy happy birthday Barry:))

    May you be granted all the happiness you deserve, and may you always be surrounded by those you love:)

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  11. LOVE THIS POST BARRY!
    HAPPY FREAKIN BIRTHDAY!

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  12. Happy Birthday to my Bestest Buddy in the world!!!! I totally agree with you, sometimes I'm not sure how I made it this far either. I also had a tire blowout. Remember my old Buick? Try controlling THAT THING at 70mph on the 401!!
    Lots of close calls and stupid things when I was young as well...Anyway, I'm thrilled we both survived, and are here to tell the tales. Hey remember indoor frisbee football at Wasaga?
    Although I was the only one getting tackled. Talk about stupid stunts....
    Love ya man, bestwishes, and many many more!!

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  13. Happy Birthday Pookie ... I left you a special message on my blog :)

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  14. Happy Birthday...
    I think writing a book is an amazing idea for anyone. What we find interesting is always relative and I think the actual act of writing/typing it out would be an amazing thing to do whether anyone picked up copy or not. I loved your stories....

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  15. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! Such funny and entertaining memories (although probably not at the time). I will now sing you happy birthday in spanish:

    Cumpleanos Feliz!
    Cumpleanos Feliz!
    Cumpleanooooosss querido Barry!
    Cumplanos Feliz!

    I hope you had an incredibly spectacular day!
    (My birthday is May 19)

    Much love on your birthday,
    Sophia

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  16. Happy birthday and cyber-spankings!!!!

    (let's see if I can post this before the clock rolls to midnight)

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  17. I sure hope you had a FANTASTIC birthday, Barry. Forgive me for the belated wish!

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  18. Sending you some belated birthday wishes your way, Barry. Hope you had a goodtime celebrating that 25th b-day yet again. It's so less stressful just to decide on a certain age you particularly like and stick with it, isn't it? :-)
    All the best, bud.
    Michael

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