Jesus and I celebrate our birthdays 12 days apart, which bugged the heck out of me as a child. My sister’s birthday hit in September, unfettered by other distractions. Me, not so much.
I got presents wrapped in Christmas paper. There’d be a card attached that read, “Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday,” which would have been fine if it was a car or something, but a Magic 8 Ball simply cannot be called two gifts. And then, around age 10, my mother got the bright idea to combine my birthday party with my friend Alex, because his birthday was at the beginning of the month, and “everyone gets so busy around the holidays.”
It was hard enough being the opening act for Jesus. Now I’d been demoted to playing on a double-bill. I felt like an aging cabaret star, slowly losing all the choice timeslots. I hadn’t even hit puberty, and I was already turning into a late-career Ann Jillian. “Who’s Ann Jillian?” you ask, proving my point.