They say it's your birthday

Okay, I admit it: the Smelmooo is right. I am far more inclined to write when I am or have recently been away from home. I say "inclined to write" because, on this trip, I've been itching to write, but have simply not had the time.

So anyway, here I am, on Long Island, for work; I have to say that the sunrise here is astonishingly beautiful, although I've heard that that's a result of pollution.

Anyway, I arrived on Tuesday night, my birthday.

I have very complicated feelings about my birthday.

I'm not particularly big on my birthday -- I don't really want a big party or a big deal made about it -- but I always become very emotional when people acknowledge it, especially if I don't feel like they're obligated to do so (like, this woman I work with gave me flowers from her garden, and another woman at work made me brownies, and I got all choked up). And even when the people who are obligated to acknowledge me still make me feel overcome with love and appreciation and gratitude: when the Smelmooo brought me out an ice cream cake and then sat me down at midnight with a pile of incredibly thoughtful, fun presents from him and Tucker, or when my mom and dad had called me at work while I was in a meeting and serenaded my assistant, because they didn't realize it wasn't me answering the phone.

I nearly died laughing at that, because they are not so skilled in the singing department, and my poor assistant was saying "No! No! Don't waste the singing on me!" but they were so caught up in the song that they didn't hear her, but then I just started crying because how cute are my parents that they still make a big fuss over my birthday and huddle together over the phone to sing to me?

But I also kind of hate being the center of attention -- I was beet-red and couldn't look at anyone in the room when people sang "Happy Birthday" during two separate meetings, and it all makes me feel very uncomfortable.

And then, I realize that, for all of my saying that I'm not a big birthday person, I realize that I do have the expectation that I'll hear from the people who I do feel are obligated, at least in my mind, to acknowledge it. I was in a huge funk because my sister Kathy hadn't even called, even though her daughter did (she and my other niece left me a wonderfully giggly, enthusiastic, A+-for-effort message singing to me). And really, who cares -- it's just another day, and it's all kind of silly, but she's my sister, for pete's sake, and she's never not called on my birthday. And then yesterday I felt like a huge chump because it turned out she had called, and left me a message at work, but it somehow didn't come through on my alerts until yesterday. But regardless, the mismatched expectations thing sets me on a crazy rollercoaster, which I suppose was exacerbated by being here. This feels like a long, long week that's just the very beginning of a long, long month and a half of big-ass travel for work, and I'm exhausted just thinking about it.

I'm getting too old for this.