My birthday is today. It doesn’t carry the same weight as it used to. I kept forgetting that today was the day, and as I get older, I find that birthdays lose their importance over time. I don’t know what to do to celebrate since I live alone in this small town. I think the trip to Avila Beach was enough. I don’t need any more of it.

I have to go back to work tomorrow. It’s a four-day week because of July Fourth on Thursday, so I’ll only have to work Monday through Wednesday and Friday. It’s always a half-day on Fridays. And then I’ll go to the dentist on the following Monday, so that would be two weeks in a row of a four-day week.

I think I’ll spend my last day on vacation doing nothing special. I’m not happy that it’s my birthday, but I’m not that sad either, just sort of numb.

The regular people on social media will wish me a happy birthday, people whom I don’t even know, whom I’ve never even met. It’s weird like that. Every year, this one man sends me a happy birthday GIF with a synthetic voice that sings the happy birthday song. In a way it’s haunting. It makes me not want to know the person. There are people I was once close to who don’t wish me a happy birthday, and it stings. In response I don’t wish them one either. I don’t know what I ever did to those friends, but that’s the way it is. But like I said, birthdays aren’t as important as they used to be.

I remember my twenty-first birthday. My cousins drove me to Las Vegas to get me drunk. I was of the legal drinking age. That was a big deal. I don’t remember anything about the trip. I was still in college at the time. It’s too bad that there are no memories.

I ate a whole bag of Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies in bed last night for a celebration. That’s about as festive as it gets for me. I’ll treat myself to a burrito tonight from my favorite Mexican restaurant. Other than that, I dread tomorrow and this whole week in fact. It’s going to be over a hundred degrees again in the desert, and I’ll have to walk in this crap to get some exercise.

I really should join the gym. But I won’t have the motivation to go every day. I don’t know. I stopped going to the gym when I was living in Culver City because I was sick of the elliptical machine. All I did was paddle my feet for a half hour and sweat. I wasn’t going anywhere. I have to be going somewhere if I’m going to exercise. Otherwise it gets monotonous. Maybe I’ll go there to lift weights. People get addicted to that sort of stuff. I never did. I always looked at it as a rough hour to get through before I was done. Then I could go home and rest. Some people love the high that it brings. They’re talking about the lightheadedness from working out too hard. I look at it as the feeling before one is about to pass out, which is never good for me.

Anyway, rent is due tomorrow, and I have to finish editing my book this week before the next stage of development. Enough about my birthday.