For what it's worth, it's my 27th birthday today

My linguist friend says I've now lasted longer than the Peloponnesian War.

I am cursed to be a giver of good presents. I'm the daughter who buys a complete CD set of "The Shadow" for a dad who liked old radio dramas as a boy. Our first Christmas, I asked the CSO what he wanted and he sarcastically said "a blowtorch." The antique brass blowtorch I found will be a minor pain on house moves for the rest of our lives. An old boyfriend's parents wouldn't let him have a Farrah Fawcett lunchbox in 1985, he got one for one Christmas in 1998. Spy museum membership on Valentine's Day for a gadget-loving husband? That's me. I have three or four presents lined up in mind for most of the people in my life, all of them quirky, fun and carefully tailored to the person.

Meanwhile, my family and closest friends have uttered a collective "It's your birthday? Oh, yeah... I'll totally get you something by next month or so. What do you want?" and I'm getting all bitchy about it.

I hate people who get all bitchy about such things.

Yet, at the same time, would it really kill my close amigos to send me a card?

(People who know me only from the internet, or people I don't talk to much and am really not all that close to exempted, of course. I just had a wedding where I got so many presents it felt vaguely like winning a game show. It's not that I want presents from the people I don't know well. It's the lack of effort from the people I do.)

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Strongly suspecting that she will pull this post in a few hours, but feeling good to have gotten all that out.