there must be a birthday...

A few nice things about birthdays:
*Waking up to a paper hippo that says happy birthday and a breakfast burrito from a dear roommate who understands that birthdays are important even if they make you feel self-conscious.
*Travel Scrabble.
*A herringbone rosette that matches your herringbone shoes.
*A waiter who's clearly taken some drug that makes him very very happy.
*Two painters painting outdoor Bloomington (town and gown) on a summery fall day.
*The girl with the parasol.
*Realizing a new friend is suddenly an old friend. Being able to talk about melancholy with someone who understands its inherence to fall, to seasons turning, to milestones.
*Getting all the critiques done. Not reading 131 drafts.
*Dinner outdoors at the Runcible Spoon, still chuckling at the feel of its name on the tongue.
*Hearing old, beloved voices.
*Maple sugar candy and all the right presents, none asked for, because Mamma just knows you this year. For example, the cake slicer for the fancy cake that's still emerging from the imagination and the cookbooks.
*A card with a chicken boy. Hooray for whimsical animals.
*Text messages about surprises which turn out to be ferny and rosy and sweet smelling.
*When you freak out about the weird eye problem and it turns your stomach and you think the day has taken a sharp downturn, truly new friends stopping by with cherry nut brownies and photographs of gourds and dogs in trench coats.
*Spontaneous Milne recitations and then the corresponding realization that you've always thought of those books as birthday books. When We Were Very Young. Now We Are Six.
*Conversations on the porch swing, strange things afoot at 813 W. K.
*That the party is Thursday, so it's not over.
*That your birthday allows you to indulge both sappiness and the second person.