Happy Birthday, Me.

I think people should get their birthday off from school and work. Veteran's Day and President's Day... they're cool and everything, but my birthday is a special day. Special just for me. I don't want my fellow students or my coworkers to say, "Happy Birthday, Calvin." I don't. You wanna know why? Because I don't ever want to see my fellow students or coworkers on my birthday. I don't want to see them. Because I should be home or at a movie... or maybe on a date with a girl who knows it's my birthday and is planning on "putting out" as my gift.

I also wish I was the type of guy who was comfortable wearing a "Kiss Me! It's My Birthday!" t-shirt. I'd be scared that complete strangers might actually do it. Don't get me wrong. I think it would be awesome if random hotties just walked up and laid one on me. But I think that sort of invitation would be too broad. It says "Kiss Me". That means that gay dudes might feel like I've given them permission to kiss me. Or even worse... what if a super ugly chick saw me walking in the mall and squealed to her friends, "THERE IT IS! I PRAYED THIS MORNING FOR THIS EXACT MOMENT!" followed by her hobbled sprint toward me (cause we all know an ugly girl with a limp is so much uglier). And with my luck, I'd be walking down the street at The Gateway and there'd be a few short buses parked outside of Discovery Gateway. I'd get swarmed by all the occupants who could read. Because, really... how many attractive women actually read a shirt like that and do something about it? None. Zero.

The bottom line is that I'm too shy to ever wear a shirt like that. I'd rather just blend into the background of most social situations. A shirt like that just draws unnecessary attention to myself. I'm a different person in my classes. If I ever know someone in class with me, then I can be myself and I turn out to be pretty funny and popular, which I'm not used to. But usually I don't know anyone so I sit at the back of the class and take notes.

I've been admiring a girl in my Intro to Psychology class... from afar, of course. She's so cute. I don't want to say "hot" cause that makes her seem less classy than I think she is. I have no idea if she's classy or not, but it's easier to go from "cute" to "hot" than the other direction, so I'm gonna start with "cute". She has a really hard name to remember, and believe me, I've tried to remember it. I'm pretty sure it starts with an "m"... like, Mikaela or something. I've been trying to sit close to her for the last three weeks, but I always get to class about two minutes late so I'm forced to sit near the front. That means I have no choice but to crank my whole entire body around every five minutes just to look at her.

Well, Wednesday it happened. I got to class late and quickly scanned the class for Mikaela. I didn't see her right away so I hurried and closed my eyes to see if I could smell her shampoo in the room. I couldn't... so I opened my eyes and looked for an empty seat. There were two empty seats near the back of the class so I wandered further into the room and decided to sit in the second row to the back, leaving one empty desk directly behind me.

I plopped down and took out my notebook. About fifteen minutes later I saw Mikaela walk into class through the door behind the professor. She glanced around the room and then started heading my direction. It appeared as though she would be sitting behind me. I got a pit in my stomach for absolutely no reason. Actually, I probably tensed up because I realized the odds were slightly better that day that we may engage in some sort of verbal exchange.

She sat behind me and I heard her fumbling around in her bag. Since her desk was up against my chair, her activity was shaking my own desk around quite a bit. I glanced over my right shoulder (kinda like I do when someone is irritating me in a movie theatre) just to let her know, through my mesmerizing eye contact and body language, that I wanted to hold her hand some point in the future. I think she knew exactly what I was trying to communicate cause she whispered, "Sorry I'm being so loud." I replied, "You are being loud. I'm trying to sleep up here." It sounded funny in my head, but I don't think she heard me cause she just kept on opening up every single zippered pocket in a 100 ft radius.

She leaned forward again and said, "Sorry again... but did I miss anything?" I can't express to you my excitement at being able to finally talk to this girl. I said, "Not much. Wanna see my notes?" She replied, "That would be awesome." I glanced down at my notes and realized I had doodled in the margins of my Psychology notebook. I had drawn two tanks, Bert holding a gun or something, and several transparent cubes. At the top of the page I had drawn 5 or 6 of those barn sketches where you have to draw it without lifting the pen off the paper. I closed my eyes for a second and took a deep breath. I handed her my notebook and waited for her to look it over. I watched her eyes bounce around the page to each of my doodles. Finally, I said, "The tanks and the cubes aren't part of the notes. Those are just my super fun doodles. But Bert and the barns up here (pointing with my pen)... you need to make sure you write those down. They're gonna be on the test." She heard me say that, luckily, and she started laughing. Unfortunately, it was a deeper laugh than I was expecting. She whispered, "Did you say that's Bert? Like from Sesame Street?" "Yeah." I replied. "I know it doesn't look like him, but that's cause you can't see his eyes through his sunglasses and that cigarette hanging out of his mouth is distracting." We talked for a while about my Bad-A Bert doodle, while she was copying my notes. It was great.

Anyway, maybe I can make some slow and steady progress with this girl whose name starts with an "M". I'll get to class early next week and see if she goes out of her way to sit by me.

Calvin