Well it was my birthday yesterday. Crap. Fuck, shit, darn, crap. I turned 20. Next stop, death.
For whatever reason my thoughts keep turning towards my own mortality. I don't want to die. I really, seriously do not want to die. Up until a year ago I was ok with it but now I really don't.
Up until yesterday I was a teenager. People who recalled with mournful nostalgia about their days of youth were not me. I was still in my childhood. Now the things I've done isn't ”stuff I do as a teenager” it's ”stuff I did as a teenager.” By name, I am older than the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I feel somehow responsible for not doing enough to prevent this change to adulthood. After all I did have two whole decades to prepare, but alas I've done nothing to stop it. Now everything reminds me of my days of yore and I feel like I've wasted some opportunities. Then again, I have so many fond memories that make me depressed that I have to recognise I did a lot of things right during those first years. But I want to do it again. I want to collect all the Tazo's again. I want to come home from school and watch the COPS cartoon and let it inspire me for upgrades to my magnificent Lego town. I want to spend hours playing basketball against myself in the neighbours driveway night after night. I want to play Pokemon cards with the guys who I wont mention here because they'll feel ashamed to have their names associated with Pokemon cards. I want to bounce on the trampoline with my brother for hours pretending that it's a SNES/Sega/Nes/Computer entertainment system combined. I want to go back to reading 15 books a week because I didn't have a computer. I want to watch a new Simpsons episode that's good when I watch it as well as being good five years later when the jokes don't go over my head anymore. I want to play the original Grand Theft Auto again for the first time. And Warcraft 2, and Command & Conquer and Duke3D. I want to go back to hanging out at Timesavers near the skill tester and eating a pie and laughing about stupid shit. I want to go back to playing basketball on Monday nights before I had a job and a car to worry about. I want to spend hours and dollars collecting and organising shiny, worthless basketball cards. I want to go back to ETSA and enjoy those three months again as a child in a man's world. I want to return to the year where I suddenly decided Tuesday night was good now because I would make four slices of vegemite toast and a hot quik and watch Blue Healers followed by the X-Files. I want to go back to the Comm Skills tute and put on a play with Dan that would be better than Mark and Ryans. My precious childhood. Why? WHY? WHY? do we have to grow old?
Is it because I am cursed with such a strong memory and interesting imagination that I feel so strongly about this? Because I remember it all so vividly is why I have problems letting it go? Is it because I find that six hours of university and night fill is about all the adult commitments I can really handle per week and this is my way of avoiding real work?
Sure, I can relive the things I used to do in my own special way. But I don't want to relive them, I want to live them. Being scuttled on whiskey doesn't make you young and waking up with crazy lego bits stuck to your face just isn't the same.
For the last few days before my birthday I was trying to evaluate what my goal in life was. While my time is spent mainly being a student (mainly as in tax purposes mainly) my goal in life, I think, is to be an entertainer. To make people laugh and at the same time avoid doing physical or mental labour. For the past week I've been writing out the script for an episode of BMG, which will have its name changed eventually. I wanted to finish the whole episode before my birthday and say yes, this is my goal. This is soil from which my future will overdramtisedly grow. However, I didn't finish the episode before my birthday, I did 2000 words but I didn't finish it. I did get my Freecell percentage up to 85% though. Maybe that's my goal for life; Play FreeCell? Who knows? Will it matter once I'm dead? I want people to give me attention now and remember me when I'm dead. When I'm dead will it matter if I'm getting attention or whether my FreeCell percentage was 85% or, hypothetically, %15 (hypothetical only). Maybe if I'm famous and dead it will just make dying harder because I'll be dissapointed about being famous while not being alive to enjoy it.
And you know none of this self-involved whining was helped last night where, after returning home from work (where I was given a birthday shout out on the PA while the store was open) I was forced to rummage through my entire room trying to find my NAS from Tax last year and along the way overturned docuements detailing my life stretching years back, which made things even more depressing. Then (while files were still scattered all over my bed) there was a blackout for two hours. And so I had to clean my bed off by watch light then, after I realised the power wasn't coming back on, I had to decide what to do. Going to bed at 1am would be pretty early for me, but there was nothing to do without power at night. Especially bad about going to bed early is that I usually drink a few litres of water after I get home then gradually piss it out until I go to bed at 3 or whatever. In fact, when the lights went out I had to go pretty badly as was. I felt my way to the toilet and, as the situation required, sat down to pee. This wasn't gay. As the rule goes you're allowed to sit down to pee when there's no light, there's a UTI or you're smashed on booze. Sitting down however seemed to be an indication to my bowels that they were good to go as well, and there was a panicked moment when I realised that shitting in the dark was not something I wanted to do with the toilet paper visibility to be considered and toilettalketc. So with that done I step outside to see if the blackout is located within my house or is affecting the neighbours too. I step outside into the unseasonably warm night. [Now, it hadn't rained for about 14 days up until yesterday. August is usually the wettest month of the year, so 14 days without rain is very disturbing, and made my birthday quite bizarre because it was 26 degrees and warm the whole day, giving my birthday a tropical feel which I could appreciate but also was disconcerting.] I stepped into the warm night and walked up the path to the street to confirm that, yes, the street lights were out and the blackout would be going for a while it seemed. My eyes had adjusted by now, and it was very light outside. Disturbingly light. The clouds were all out and they were hued red. I could see pretty far and it was difficult to comprehend that it was 1am smack bang in the middle of the night and it was so light. Also adding to the creepy was the spatters of rain spitting down for the first time in a fortnight. I went back inside, resigned myself to an early night's sleep and soon found myself being woken up by cats screeching at each other a few feet from my window as well as an intense need to urinate. I slashed, scared the cats off then went back to bed. The power then came back on at 2:45am while I was trying to return to sleep, and my monitor came back on and displayed a huge, bright ”No Signal Detected” thing that didn't dissapear automatically and required me to get up again to turn the monitor off. I fell asleep again and woke up at 10:50 with the intention of going to uni. But I didn't, despite having slept for 9 and something hours I felt lethargic and decided to skip, well, everything. I did read the SP lecture while I ate my huge breakfast, and understood it. My birthday ramble is pretty much run out of steam now. I think I'll recap my life over the weekend.

I'm not ready to be an adult, when facing up on Monday night steve wanted a good face up and wanted stuff from the back of the shelf pulled forward. Whoever in the next aisle wasn't putting enough effort into it, and I overheard Steve so ”no, I want it deeper.” And God Help Me I laughed.