Birthsday Colunm
by Justin Anderson
Okay. Welcome to the first Somethingspace Birthday Column. What the Birthday Column is, and will be, is a recurring feature here on the site. Every time it's a contributor's birthday, said contributor gets incredibly drunk and sits down in front of the computer to write. Then, the following day when the booze has worn off, we'll try to make some sense of the column, without making any actual editing changes (spelling, etc.). My birthday came first, so here goes:
My annotations are in blue
Well, the whole poitn of this thing is for me to write it while steaming dfrunk. ("Steaming" being a pherase I[icked up from my Scottish friend Chris. It means drunk.) It was suggessted to me, while out drinking tobnight, that I write about what it's like being 24. Which I am. It was my birthday last Thursday, and now I'm 24. Hm. Good to see that when I'm loaded I retain my penchant for over-explaining points.
What I've learned in my 24 years on this fucking planet . . . I know that "adulthood," as we know it at least, is, at best, a nebulous distinction. I mean, what, am I an adult now? Like that Pursuit Of Happiness sonng? The Pursuit Of Happiness, for those of you who don't know, is a Canadian alternative rock band from the '80s. They had a minor hit with a song called I'm An Adult Now, which I didn't actually know I remembered. I'm a 24-year-old boy, for chrissakes. I guess I've learned some thimgs, but mostly I've learned that life isn't fair, or even particularly fun. (Author's note: it took me about 4 tries to spell "even" correctly just then.) Nice. I suppose I have a "life," as most people would consider it. I have a job., friends, an apartment. Food on my plate and a shi\rt on my back. I dunno though. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I'm in the real; world now, and not just on some extended vacation from school and the outward validation of grades and marks and doing better than my keener ex-girlfriend. Hey, nice to see I managed to sneak in a shot at my ex . . .? What, did I attend school for four years and get a degreee so that I could sit around my fucking house and drink? Smoke pot? Draw comics? What would my high school guidance counsellor say to that? I know I would say that I get incredibly fucking melancholy when drunk. I hereby apologize to all of my friends who've had to put up with this shit. Sorry.
Shit. I should probably apologize for being all weird and philosophical. That's howI get when I'm dr5unk. I spew my half-baked theories on politics and philosophy. And women. But I won't get into that now [good], as Liam's always giving me shit about how I'm writing about how heartbroken I am for the site too much. This is true. I'm sorryu, should I write about how wonderful my life is? 'Cause it's not. Not wonderful at all. Jesus Christ, I swear I'm not normally this whiny. Luckily I don't drink that much. Well, it's not that bad, really, but . . . I dunno, let's just say that I hope my last 24 years is a bit better than my first. Ugh.
Hey, I learned something crazy tonight. Aaron told me that William Shatner made an entire movie in Esperanto once. That's fucking crazy. I think he maybe lied to me. Lemme check IMDB.com . . . holy shit this is real. It's called Incubus, and was made in 1965. That's so crazy. Esperanto, for those of you who don't know, is the language that was made up in the '60s (I think it was the '60s) that was supposed to become the universal language of the planet Earth, and end all war. Noble, I know, but so stupid. And it's been a punchlibe ever since. Hey, maybe you learned something. Then again, maybe you clicked on something else before you got this far. I can't say I'd blame you.
Okay, this is maybe getting tired. Tired or hilarious. I'll leave that up to you. I know which side I'm leaning towards . . . Pick one. I don't care. I'm drunk. And how. What have I learned at 24? Life fucking blows sometimes, and you gotta try to appreciate the good stuff, like love and family and friends and Jean Claude Van Damme movies. Who can argue with that? Also, I need a new fucking TV,. Mine's on the fritz. It keeps flickering and shit, and it's driving me up the goddamn wall. A new TV has now officially - officially - superceded world peace on the list of things I wish I could have. It's good that I made that official statement. Though world peace wouldn't really just be for me, but rather for everyone. I am nothing if not a benevolent drunk, apparently. Though I'm pretty sure that if I was the architect of world peace, I'd get lots of action. I'll let the ladies of the world decide that one, I guess.
Hey, you know what I'm gonna write now? A screenplay for an action miovie where the climax takes place on Mt. Rushmore. And the villain gets thrown off of Washington's head. Maybe with Lou Diamond Phillips. He was great. Hey, I come up with shit like this when I'm sober too. I'll let you draw your own conclusions about that.
Liam, if this makes no sense and is just awful, I am sorry. You and me both, guy. But if it's great and all you readers love it (do you? e-mail me at justin@somethingspace.com, I'd fucking love to hear from ya), (seriously; I would love to hear what you all think of this. And I'm lonely.) then lemme know. I think I gotta throw up now. Goddamn fucking nachos. Knew I shouldn't have eaten. Where's my shirt? As I recall, this isn't just a thrown-away joke; I vaguely recall being confused as to where my shirt went at this point. Upiff.
Well, I guess I'll apologize to you, gentle reader, for inflicting my drunken (and I mean very drunken) ramblings on you. And thank you. If you read all of this, thank you. Seriously. I appreciate you putting up with this. Hope you liked it. I know it was fun for me. Well, the drinking was fun. Kind of. I honestly have little to no recognition of writing this. Oh well. Until next year. Or a couple weeks from now when it's Liam's birthday. Should be fun.
