I've been helping my brother trick people on DotA into thinking he's female so they'll be more helpful when he's playing with them. He says that he isn't tricking anyone and he isn't claiming that he's female when he asks me to say stuff into his mic, and that it's just a tactical advantage. It is pretty funny to watch the guys he's playing with get into white knight mode after I start talking.

We also had this conversation:
Him: There's this annoying Brazilian guy on my team and he's all like "Hello, I am Brazilian from Brazil. Brazil Brazil Brazil."
Me: Does he really say that?
Him: No, but that's what I hear.

My brother makes a lot of racist comments in jest. My dad kind of does it too, though to a much smaller degree. I think my mom is the only one who doesn't, actually. She says actually racist things sometimes, but not in a way that's meant to be offensive. Just in that kind of sheltered, ignorant way.

I think my boyfriend isn't sure if my family is actually racist or if we're just kidding. I think we're just kidding. I can understand why it would be hard to tell though. I tend to say some pretty terrible things casually and I don't always make it clear I'm joking. This has led to some of my friends perceiving me as that person who WOULD be involved with a messed up thing. Just your friendly neighborhood sociopath, I dunno.

The racist joking thing probably comes from my dad's being brought up in Hawaii. They are more casual about it there than they are here on the mainland.

Also, it's only 11:30 PM on the 19th here, despite what the date on the post says, but I guess I'll be 22 in about half an hour.

My birthday makes me remember this:


Obviously I have never been drafted into the army and it's unlikely I ever will be, but it's the general tone of the song that resonates with me.

My boyfriend doesn't really understand why birthdays are a big deal to me. He sees them as things where you have parties when you're a kid, but once you're an adult it's just another day. I, on the other hand, was raised with the idea that birthdays are special and to be celebrated regardless of your age. Not in a lavish way, necessarily, but they're something to be acknowledged.

I remember going into a kids' chatroom when I was about 13 and telling the kids there that birthdays were just reminders that we were going to die. I've never really felt differently about that. Now it's just that birthdays are reminders of mortality without a celebration to distract from that fact momentarily.

I wonder if my somber attitude about my birthday means I'm afraid to die. I don't really feel like I'm that afraid of death... maybe a little more now since I have more to lose than I used to... Losing time is a scarier prospect. Through the years I have often paused for a moment and wondered to myself if I would remember that moment or just forget it like so many others. I guess the simple act of thinking that makes me remember those times, so I have a small catalogue of memories in which I am in a particular place and thinking "Will I remember this years from now?" The earliest one is from when I was walking home from elementary school.

I don't remember the last time I truly felt young, which I guess is paradoxical since I am somewhat afraid to get old. Maybe I just don't want my body to catch up with how I feel.

When I really think about it, placing significance on birthdays kind of goes against other philosophies I have. My lifetime, against the timescale of the universe, is not even a speck of dust. My birthdays are even less significant on that scale. More than that, wanting a day to "feel special" seems kind of like... vanity. Over-inflated self importance. My feelings are contradicting my thoughts.

Maybe I just cling to this idea of birthdays being a big deal because the memories I have of being happy and feeling significant at those times are something I don't want to discard. A lot of my memories are of feeling insecure or just... not happy. I'm not sure why I don't remember more good things. There must have been more before high school, even if there weren't a lot during my teenage years. I dunno.

Two forums have wished me a happy birthday so far. One of them was a place I only posted once, when I was 14, to ask if I seemed like I had a phobia of confrontation. They told me they thought I was just shy, and I was so embarrassed that I had asked that I never posted again.

So much has changed since then... I don't feel like the same person at all. Then again, I don't feel like the same person I was yesterday, either. My sense of time and self is all... out of whack.

This post got really long and rambly.

Happy Birthday
Happy Birthday randomjunk! Enjoy being 22 - when most have their last year of college, and are not quite beholden to the expectations of adulthood :D
Enjoy~
» SylphFeather on 2013-09-20 01:01:53

I like the idea of celebrating my birthday, but if I don't get the chance to do so on the day of, it's really not a big deal. I did take the day off from my second job, but that's because I'm already off from my first one and had already made plans lol. I hope your birthday is a special one. I'm sure your boyfriend will get you something extra special, despite his nonchalance about the whole thing. Is he one of those people who cares more about others' than his own?

re: heels probably aren't more comfortable than wedges, but I've always felt that heels are slightly classier than wedges and I want to wear something with a little more class to the wedding that I've been invited to. Now to find the dress ...
» LostSoul13 on 2013-09-20 10:35:39

Wow, rj, I also have a catalog of memories like that. In high school I was lying on a towel by the lazy river at a water park, and I thought to myself, "This moment will pass away forever into oblivion." And I wondered if it was possible for me to remember this completely ordinary moment forever. And I have. And to that image I have added many others... a specific clump of grass, or the way that a specific rainstorm sounded against a wooden deck. The only requirement is that the moment has to be the kind that would otherwise be forgotten forever.
I think the thing about birthdays is that they do remind us that we will die, not in a way to remind us of our fear of death, but in a way to remind us of our delight in living, to remind us that time is always passing and we have to savor every moment, both terrible and wonderful, while it is still possible to do so. Birthdays stand out as markers in time, kind of like a catalog of trivial memories, but one that we can share with special people around us. This feeling of time passing is one of the reasons I like to live in a place with seasons, or why I'd like to have children some day. We could live out our days with no spaces between them, no time to reflect on what has happened and what is yet to come, the march of time only visible in our diminished capabilities as we age... or we could mark our time by wonderful things, leaves falling, flowers blooming, beautiful memories in the cold of winter and heat of summer with people that we dared to truly love... children's birthdays, our own birthdays, every event a monument to beautiful things gone by. The paradox is that our lives are utterly insignificant in the span of the universe and yet they are the most significant experiences we will ever, ever have. From a religious perspective, I think people solve this frustrating duality by believing that God simultaneously sees the entirety of space and time and yet, incredibly, unbelievably, cares about each of us in the here and now ("His eye is on the Sparrow, and I know he's watching over me")--- i.e, the fact that God gives us that kind of value means that we must be valuable. From a non-religious, philosophical perspective (I personally kind of vacillate between the two), I think we just come to the realization that a thing (like love, or a human life) can be at once cosmically insignificant and monumentally and overwhelmingly singularly important, depending on your viewpoint (relativity!)

Anyway, a very happy birthday to you, rj, I've been glad that we've gotten to share this fleeting nanosecond of existence with each other. Its meaning to me is disproportionate to its duration.
» Zanzibar on 2013-09-21 07:00:36

I'm sorry I missed your birthday! It sounds like it was nice, though.

As far as thinking it's vain and self-involved to want to feel special on your birthday...well, sure, it is, but it's so relatively minute, as far as self-absorption is concerned, that you shouldn't worry about it. Enjoy feeling special. You got through another year of living, and I say that's something to celebrate.
» Unicornasaurus on 2013-09-23 05:52:07

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