happy birthday to you.

In an unprecedented move, I’ve decided not to talk about sex today. Ok perhaps not really unprecedented in the strictest sense, but I do remember writing about sex for my last 2 postings and I can’t really remember anything before that (except perhaps more sex) and I’m not bothered enough to check if it’s a serious tendency problem. I’m not sure I should be, considering how my brother tells me men think about sex for a third of their waking hours. Howls of chagrin and indignation ensue of course – ‘How can this be true when we also, as an empirical fact, think about soccer/basketball/cricket/the art of tutu manufacture for three quarters of our lives?’ and ‘This is impossible! We think of sex more than half the time!’ – but, fuck! I’m not gonna talk about sex. So there.

What’s in a date? Why do people find it necessary to attach importance to what seems to me to be a purely arbitrary system of ordering our lives? For that matter why do we let that order our lives in the first place? And I don’t mean ‘date’ as in that which is a prelude to sex, because I’m not gonna talk about it. I mean ‘date’ as in that of the ‘today’s Universal Lose Your Virginity Day, otherwise known as Valentine’s Day’ variety. As far as I can see, and as far as anyone should but don’t see for the obvious reason that no one in the right mind ever does think of, and should ever think of; dates under such a critical light as if it’s a nail-biting conclusion to some cliffhanger of an Armageddon-inducing make-or-break all-or-nothing ice-cream (well this constitutes the first contact with a hyphen for me, so) dilemma faced by the masses a la questions such as ‘is blue the new pink this season?’

No, really, I’m making a point. I think. What’re dates but certain configurations of the earth and the moon and/or the sun (depending on whether you’re a poster boy for the lunar and/or solar calendar)? Or, of course, some may argue they’re actually demarcations between the blinkings of a divine eye or something. Me, I can’t ever get with this notion of dates for sure. I mean, how romantic is it when you exclaim to your girlfriend, ‘Hey honey-bunny (I’m sorry Tarantino occupies a place in my heart), happy 2400493024^th blink of Great A’Tuin’s (I’m sorry for the Pratchett reference here as well) right peeper!’ In any case, even the more conventional calendars fail to tell me why it is that the positions of the sun and/or moon can confer magical powers such as sexual tension on this thing they call ‘days’. I mean, why’re numbers like 365.25 (the absurdity, as you can see, multiplies once you take technicalities to their logical conclusion) more important than any other number, so much so that we go out of our way to make fools of ourselves by pretending to be social and civil when we’re never gonna achieve sufficient merit for both; every such period? How’re numbers or, if you wanna stretch it the astrological way, magnetic fields; relevant to this tomfoolery?

Perhaps celebrations should just be that – celebrations. With the relevant factors being those which are being celebrated of course. And it does no good to just say ‘my day’. It’s just fallaciously question-begging. Relevance here will therefore be milestones confined to that individual who’s on the receiving end (I prefer to use the term ‘victim’) of attention and fawning over. Or, as it happens on a more frequent basis, that of wedgies and unfastened bra clasps depending on your gender and/or undergarment preferences. Milestones in this case will mean, of course, expected things which creep up on you when they happen, such as the Instance of Growing My First Whisker and the First Occurrence of the Pimple; as well as totally unexpected events such as What in Fuck’s Name Just Happened THERE?! and Why the Fuck am I Bleeding Here?!!

Fuck dates. Ok ok perhaps only thrice a year. And I’m still not talking about sex, whether you amorously gravitate towards fellow human beings or a type of fruit.