Tomorrow is August. August 1st to be exact as is the usual starting point for a month. What can really be said about August beyond that towards the end of it I came into existance? It’s true. I was born on the 25th.

I have had some really great opportunies to spend my birthdays in unusual and unique ways. For my 16th birthday I was in NYC with a group of friends and we ate pizza in a park under a bridge. It was all very rebelious and also quite exciting and fun to be away from home with no “adults” and not returning when you were supposed to be and having a good (safe!) time in a big city.

On my 21st Gladys and I hit 3/4 of the bars in state college (which, considering the amount of bars in State College, is no small feit). I didn’t do 21 shots, but the bartender at The Big Easy that waited on us was very attentive to all of our needs and kept us entertained. On my 22nd birthday I had gone home to Puerto Rico with Gladys (she was getting married in early September.. so we went a bit head of schedule to have fun) and I got to see the ocean for the first time. Last year Jason and I had a quiet day (which was what I wanted. Cake and Jason were my only requests.) and it was absolutely perfect.

This year though.. I’m not feeling it. I haven’t been feeling “it” (that celebraty feeling you’re supposed to get around holidays and birthdays) since Christmas really. This past Christmas was just bad. It definately put a bad taste in my mouth as far as Christmases go. And I love me some Christmas. I could watch charlie brown and the grinch everyday and be ok with it (I did so much as a kid leading up to Christmas that I could actually recite the grinch). I have my tree up the day after Thanksgiving and there is a gift spreadsheet that calculates out dollars and indicates whether the item has been purchased or wrapped. It’s all very organized.

I just don’t feel very festive this year. I don’t know that I want presents. What I mean to say is I’d certainly never refuse a gift (who would?!) but I can’t think of anything I want (or need) and while I would love some cake, I just don’t feel like flying the Justin flag or making a big deal about it. The attention really kind of embarasses me because I didn’t really DO anything. I just happened. I say wait until I change the world in some way and we’ll declare my birthday a national (paid time off!) holiday and then we’ll call it even.

Yesterday it seemed like every piece of equipment we had in the office broke. Every single one of them. Letter folder? Jammed. Fax machines? Not sending out. Annoying people who thought it’d be a good idea to drive 9 hours but not make an appointment to see who they wanted to speak to? Well.. that one isn’t really broken office equipment but it was on my plate to deal with as well.

To be helpful, I sent out an email stating that our fax machines were currently not sending faxes out and anyone who tried would more than likely experience a problem and their fax would not send. I even went so far as to say that I had reported the problem and would notify them when it was in working order again. This was probably my first mistake.

I got a phone call later in the afternoon and our conversation went like this:

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Me: This is Justin.

Them: Hey Justin this is Penny*, I saw your email but I have a fax that I need to send out.

Me: Is it urgent?

Penny: Not really no. So does your email mean that no faxes can be sent?

Me: Yeah. You’re welcome to try but I don’t think that it will go through.

Penny: Ok thanks.

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A little while later Penny stopped by to see me and let me know that her fax didn’t go through. I let her know that’s why I sent the email out because the fax machines aren’t sending faxes. I laughed about it because if I didn’t, I would have cried. I then informed my boss that if it were legal to drink at work, I’d have been tanked. She took that news very well I think.

*Names have been changed to protect the innocent.

I woke up this morning and it was like any other morning. I had a cat in my face. The sun was trying to stab through the curtains. The alarm was blaring. All normal first seconds of alertness type things. 

Everything was normal. I showered. I dressed. I slurped what Jason likes to call my coffee flavored milk  and ate some breakfast. I even began conquest for the known world (I am a bit hooked to Civilization Revolution. A lot bit). A typical summer morning with a hectic dash for the door as the dreaded clock on the cable box tells me that no only am I running late, I should have left ten minutes ago.

So imagine my surprise when I reach the office and notice that while it may be Tuesday, it is also the 29th. Of July. Where did the month go? I was just in Florida with all the fireworks and the 4thness like… last week! Surely it can’t be the end of the month already. There are a million and one things I want to get done before the month ends!! Now it’s ending in two days??? 

This, my friends, is not right.

What should I expect though? The monthly calendar I keep on my cube wall is from June.

I have to say that it was a very productive weekend at the Little White Box. My bestest friend in the entire world Gladys and her husband came over to visit and we had margaritas and it was a grand old time that commenced in dinner out with  some of their friends that we’ve hung out with before and I don’t think I’ve talked that much or laughed that hard in a while.

Rewind though, to Saturday morning. Jason had finally had “enough” and decided it was time to mulch. And mulch he did. Amid the bee-like creatures that decided to take up residence in the ground (who knew?!) to the spiders, ants and other assorted insect like creatures, Jason successfully dug up 95% of the lily of the valley that took over the patch of land in front of the house, behind the trees and bushes and were threatening to eat the front steps. He’s since put down landscaping cloth and mulch and it looks a million times better. I contributed to his efforts by cleaning the house and doing dishes.

The following day I still had about 3/4 of a pitcher of margaritas in the freezer that Gladys and I hadn’t consumed so naturally after waking up and deciding that scrubbing the basement was the best idea in the universe (as I decided we were Going.To.Be.Productive.ALL.WEEKEND.LONG!) it was time to load the washer and dryer and kick back with a margarita.. or 6.

In my defense, it was after 12, it was happy hour somewhere, and they HAD to be drunk or they’d go to waste and a wasted frozen margarita is a horrible horrible thing. There are probably starving children in some country somewhere who’d kill for a frozen margarita right about now. I was simply doing my duty as an able bodied American to cut down on waste while attempting to control my consumerism by not purchasing anything new until I had consumed/used what I already had available to me. 

See? Doesn’t that sound so much better than saying that after I mopped the floor and scrubbed the shower that laziness set in so I decided I could do laundry drunk as well as I could sober?