Thank you for liking me on my Birthday

Happy Valentine’s Day.

As longtime readers of this blog know, it’s also my birthday. I’m getting closer and closer to 40.

But having your birthday on Valentine’s Day has its drawbacks. You can’t go out to dinner because everyone is going out to dinner. And restaurants jack up the prices. Or they have special menus AND jack up the prices. Four course gourmet dinner at Applebee’s, that sort of thing.

And you share your birthday with a holiday. I remember in the second grade when we had to give out Valentines to everyone in class, I didn’t get one from Charlene Uranga. Not only did it bum me out because I had a big crush on her, but it’s distressing when the pattern for your love life becomes quite apparent at six.

So I’ve never really loved my birthday. A few years ago I went to a SPORTS ILLUSTRATED SWUIMSUIT party and one of the chefs came down with Hepatitis. So we all had to get emergency immune globulin shots from a needle they use on horses.

And then there was this happy celebration one year.

But now, thanks to social media, my spirits have been lifted. Like (I’m assuming) most people on Facebook, I’ve been receiving lovely birthday greetings from friends and family members far and wide. Even people I don’t know are wishing me Happy Birthday.

One year I wrote back individual notes. That ate up 90% of my birthday. Now I just write one status update thanking everyone who remembered me on this anniversary of the day a bunch of Al Capone’s gangsters mowed down other gangsters in a Chicago garage.

But I sort of feel guilty because I don’t check Facebook every day and as a result very rarely reciprocate when someone wishes me a Happy Birthday. I know it's horrible, but it’s nothing personal. I love each and every one of you and wish you all the happiest of birthdays, but Jesus, you people have birthdays EVERY SINGLE DAY. This would be so much easier if, like racehorses, everyone just aged another year on January 1st.

So again, to all of you – thank you and Happy Birthday either in advance or belatedly. And I mean that.

And I already wished you a Happy Valentine’s Day. Charlene Uranga, if you’re out there, it’s not too late.

from By Ken Levine