Tiny Letter is defunct so I will switch gears to this blogger because nothing matters anyway.
Today is my birthday but it is also any other day! The gift I gave myself was breaking from school for the Summer. I just didn't have it in me. By "it" I mean several things -- brain power, energy, motivation to endure more groupwork with strangers, money. For those keeping score, I have completed 8 courses and have 10 more to go, so an unmotivating amount to be clear.
Ash honored my obsession with Multiverseland, a neighborhood oddity, by green alien balloons and expressing her love for all versions of me while still glad she got this one. I think there could be some tweaks. Multiverseland is two streets over, where an 80 year-old couple calling themselves Dr. GoodVibes and Dean Smiley have decorated their yard with tents and christmas lights, inflatables, and printed out intergalactic inspirational messages. They welcome everyone Saturday nights and we have visited twice now. They even made a CD of a multiverse cantata that is my fave. They didn't murder us. They seem to take it in stride and while nuts as the day is long their enthusiasm for it all combined with their reluctant aging bodies strikes me in good ways. It scares and thrills me. Its that crossroad of cute nostalgic kitsch and hair-standing-up on your neck creepy like an episode of Tim and Eric show good job.
This morning we walked to get a fluffernutter pastry at Cafe Clementine and dodged heatstroke. Ash got me a big straw hat which is the thing you get for 39. Lior was getting sleepy and hot so we went home for naps. He has two teeth already! He has been a joy and we aren't just saying that. We always say "no crying he made." He is a good boy and kinda shy and his hair has a reddish tint. He is starting to wave but it is more like he will start folding his fingers in response to you waving, then he just stares at his fingers like how are they doing that?
School is coming to a close. Mako finished his first year of his focus in steel drums as well as performing drums in the jazz band. He is so in his element up there and his confident smile is my favorite part. I asked him what he thinks he will be doing on his 39th birthday and he immediately welled up saying "I don't like to think about it." I asked him "Think about what? not living with your family?" He nodded and sniffled.
Rudy brought home all his artwork from the full year and walked each piece, one by one, up to the dinner table calling it his art gallery. He was most proud of his polar bear with the smallest nose that was in a show at school. He made a fox sculpture and said his friend Javion left his in his backpack and it "smattered to peeshes." We don't let anything slide around and we were all dying, including Rudy.
Ash is prepping to go back to Perkins this coming school year and we got Lior in a daycare. We just have to send him 2 days a week in the summer to hold the spot. Crazy how fast it all moves but we think it might help him ease into care, and help Ash ween off him too. It's mutually challenging but we trust it will all work out.
I went walking and exercising around the lake and I was thinking of people I share my birthday with, my multiverse brethren, Octavia Spencer, my coworker Danielle, Jessica Williams whom I crushed on in the 7th grade, and my friend David who died about a decade ago. I kept calling him and leaving voicemails for days before I learned of his death. I was calling him in heaven but didn't pay for long distance. He always talked about counting your blessings everyday. It was in his email address: CYBESD. It's not a very catchy acronym. I have so many to count, far more than my 39 years.
