Birthday List

Tomorrow is June, so it’s time for the annual birthday list.

First of all, let me say, I’ve been feeling very materialistic and wantish, lately. I want new clothing to no particular purpose, and shiny useless trinkets, and anything colourful that’s dangled in front of me. I’m like a child, but with less inherent good judgement.

My birthday list is therefore rather pared down, paradoxical as that may sound. This is a list that demands purity, or at least a higher standard of wanting. That’s how I feel about it this year, anyway, and grabbier lists can come later.

Starting with the left column, top to bottom:

1 – The traditional birthday breakfast is coffee and a muffin, and oof, let me tell you, I’ve had some fine muffins lately. Still, I’m going to switch it up, and go for the cookies. Cookies so heavy with chocolate, that they’re nearly black: that’s where my heart is leading me, right now.

2 –  Next, the traditional shiny. Back in March or so, my sister took me to a local gem show, and one booth had these beautiful, densely-included quartz crystals (mined from Vancouver Island, as I recall). I’m still annoyed that I didn’t buy one.

3 – This year, on my birthday, I’m travelling to Toronto to visit my close friends. I’m excited about it for all sorts of reasons, but ranking extra high is the fact that most of our plans involve sitting around at home, and drinking tea, and playing Zelda. Literally the best possible present.

4 – And since I’m away for several days, leaving my garden untended and unwatered, I’m hoping it will pour with rain. You guys, it has little seedlings growing in it, now! Soon they’ll produce things for me to eat! My god, it’s pleasing.

5 – What do we have, here? A second shiny? Yes, well, I’m at the point in my shiny collecting trajectory where I have a profusion of cheaper, smaller stones, and enough medium-to-large ones that my apartment is starting to look like a low-rent museum of geology. What I really need to think about, now, are rare or precious stones. So here’s an uncut sapphire – a nice, clear, gemmy one – don’t mind if I do.

6 – Dessert is another list tradition, and lately the internet has been flashing me pictures of beautiful, scarcely-iced cakes. Is this a current fad in the cake world? Because I’m into it; cakes always have way too much icing for my personal needs and wants. So what I’m imagining, here, is a triple-stacked light sponge sandwiched with strawberry or raspberry jam, and iced just-so.

7 – Beneath the roiling surface of my petty wanting, I know that what I really want is go hang out with some oceans and forests. I’ve been doing a fair amount of it lately, you could argue, with the cat-sitting (which was followed a week later by dog-sitting). Nonetheless, I need more, and I mean to get as much of it as I can before the summer ends.