"Happy Bday Bruss"

In what has turned into a very sad yearly exercise for the blog I now present my annual gripe about the number of birthday Facebook posts I receive. I've updated the chart from the 2011 post to now reflect the last two years worth of data.

Birthday Facebook Wall Posts by Year

So I'm back up to my historical averages, and I've officially attributed 2011's pathetic haul to a fluke that hid my birthday on Facebook. But that does provide insightful data that only about 6 people remember my birthday without the help of Facebook  In addition to the wall posts, I got 3 emails, 1 Google chat status, 4 text messages, 2 phone calls and 1 card. The winner of best text message goes to my sister Laura who sent me "Birthday Boy!!" continually throughout the day at perfect 2 hour intervals.

Unfortunately there was no post from Mr. Ray.

This post title is from the hands-down most common facebook post I received  although a younger me would have gone with the exceptional "Happy Birthday Fart Face" from my friend Beth.

Moving Again

Last Thursday night I finished moving for the 9^th time in the last 8 years. My favorite move was when I moved from State and Arbor to State and Hoover in college. The entire move was only about 200 yards, and I took most of my stuff to the new house via my childhood wagon. An amusing aside, while moving my clothes a cop pulled over my wagon and searched it thinking I was hiding a keg underneath the clothes.

The new house with the Jeep

I lived in my last residence for 2 and a half years, the longest I’ve lived in the same place since I moved out of my parents house when I was 18. It was a perfect townhouse for someone coming out of college and wanting more space than an apartment, but not ready for a house.  My roommate on the other hand is 4 years older than me and ready for the house. After much procrastinating he bought a house a few miles away from where we lived. It has a lot more space, an acre of land and a garage. It's not the house I would have bought, but he seems happy with the purchase. It means that I can no longer walk downtown or to the post office. It also means that I had to move from a large bedroom with its own bathroom and walk-in closet to a much smaller room with a shared bathroom and no walk in closet.  But the rent I’ll be paying to my roommate is such a good deal, that it wasn’t worth it to move somewhere else or pay rent in the townhouse by myself.

I spent the last two weeks slowly moving things from one house to the other. I went up to Mt. Baker last weekend so I had to do most of the moving during the weeknights. It really made me think about the things I need vs. the things I have.  It went from things I needed for the next 2 weeks, to things I needed for the next few days, to the next night, to the next couple hours. I eventually went full opium den with just a mattress, computer, change of clothes and a towel.

I’m not sure how long I’ll be living in this house. It’s not exactly where I envisioned myself spending my middle 20s. I realized just how much stuff I have that I don’t need and I’m considering just keeping some of that stuff packed away unless I need it. On one hand, it’s nice accumulating the stuff that you always wanted but on the other it’s relieving being able to live with just what you need and little more. In college I only owned what I could fit into a bedroom and moving was easy. Those days are gone and every move I make from now on is going to be a pain in the buns.