Thanks for the happy birthday wishes! It was a swell birthday, but it was also a birthday that was EERILY SIMILAR to another birthday I had not too long ago.

Let us flashback to…say…CHAPTER ONE of my book Happy Birthday or Whatever. The title of said book draws from the chapter in which my PARENTS FORGET MY BIRTHDAY.

Now let us flashforward to present day, August 25, 2010, also known as my birthday (and the birthdays of Regis Philbin, Elvis Costello, Ivan the Terrible, and, in addition, my friend Natalie. I should note that I’ve only had dinner with one of those four people. Hint: It’s not Ivan the Terrible). It was a good birthday. I ate a very civilized dinner with a few of my closest friends, including Chris who was carrying a murse. We made fun of him and agreed that in order to offset the mursiness he had to carry bacon, ammo, power tools, various knives, and a bottle of Old Spice. Anyway point is, it was a very pleasant evening, murse and all. I did not want a rage-a-thon this year. Figured I’d wait for the weekend like a responsible grown-up, which I now am. Not really.

But wait…something is missing…hmmm…something is misssiinnnggg.

Oh right. My parents TOTALLY FORGOT AGAIN. Again!!!

You’d think that when your kid writes a BOOK about forgetting her birthday, you’d start, you know, remembering.

So the next day August 26, is my parents’ anniversary. So I call my mom and I’m like heeeyy girl, what’s up? And I say happy anniversary! And she goes, oh is that today? Really? What’s the date? I say it’s August 26th. She goes whoaaa, where did the time go, are you sure its our anniversary? And I say yes, I am sure because I have a thing called a calendar, it is a device from the future in which you can annotate important dates. This “calendar” is also available in digital forms, such as on a computer or on a cellular telephone. And then I wait for it. You know, the REALIZATION that she has made A HORRIBLE MISTAKE. And she goes, oh well, I’ll call you daddy later, what are you doing for your birthday tomorrow?

*forehead slap*

I say DUDE my birthday was YESTERDAY, and she goes, NO, and I say YES and she says NO, and that keeps going for awhile and then she says sorry and says “Oh my gosh, I’m such a zero.” Which actually made me laugh because I have never heard her say that before, I have no idea where she picked that up. Sometimes she says “I’m going to give you knuckle sandwich” which is pretty hilarious and my father calls rolling through a stop sign a “California Stop” instead of a “California roll” even after I explained that it’s a play on words with the type of sushi, but he thinks that is nonsense. I think that cream cheese in sushi is gross. Cheese and seaweed is weird, you guys. Seriously. Who was the dude who said “Oh shit I just had a great idea. What if we take some raw fish, add some cream cheese, add some rice and wrap it with seaweed? Awesome, right?” The man was obviously from California.

Anyway my mother says sorry, I go it’s fine, but really, what is wrong with you? Then she says, oh it’s really hot in Los Angeles! I’m not sure if she was trying to change the subject or if perhaps the 103 degree heat has actually made her “go full retard.”

So then I think, do I call my father, wish HIM a happy anniversary? And I think no no no, in just a few minutes, he will call me. Because my mother will call him and tell him that they forgot something important and in addition, did you know it was our anniversary today? No, me neither! OMG!

Anyway he ended up calling and apologizing.

Oh, I should also mention that my brother had REMINDED/WARNED them it was my birthday. Like, seriously people. He said he tried, but failed. Anyway the whole thing is hilarious and sad, but probably more hilarious. More sad the first time, more hilarious the second time.

I learned an important lesson today: Always order more desserts, even if people say no no no I’m full I don’t really need to eat dessert. Because they are lying. Everyone needs to eat dessert.

World Cup begins this week. I do not know anything about soccer. I don’t. Seriously. I know that the ball is black and white. I know that people chase this ball and that other people chase the people with the ball. I know there’s a net with someone in front of it. I know at some point, a bunch of bros line up in front of this net and cover their testicles with their hands. I don’t know why they do this because from what I understand, people are aiming the ball at the net, not at testicles. But what do I know? I don’t know anything about soccer. Oh, but I do know that many of these players are rather good looking gentlemen who are much younger than I am, not that there’s a problem with that. Nope, no problem at all.

Here is something else I know: I love to bet money on sports I know nothing about. Interestingly, I love to bet money, and yet I hate to lose money. And I often lose money because I don’t know anything about sports. This creates a situation. A situation in which I lose money and have complicated feelings of anger, confusion, loss, regret, despair among others. I should also mention that I hate losing. Maybe somewhere there are people who lose and think “It’s not about winning or losing, it’s about how you play the game.” You know what? Good for them. They are better than I am. I’m sure they floss every night and use ethical traps to capture and release mice. Listen, I’m not a good person. I like to WIN. I hate to LOSE. I want to DESTROY mice.

The point is, I have joined my friend’s World Cup pool. During the March Madness pool, I believe I came in second to last. It was truly madness. I was pretty mad, in fact. Mad that I WAS NOT A WINNER. DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM? I AM A WINNER. EVERYONE TELLS ME I AM A WINNER, LIKE FOR EXAMPLE, MY PARENTS. Actually that is a lie. My parents do not think I am a winner. Mostly because I have not produced human offspring and also because I am not a doctor.

So yes, World Cup soccer. Very exciting. I cannot wait to watch some games and HAVE NO IDEA what is going on. Sure, I could read about it on Wikipedia, or have one of you cats out there explain it to me. But, you know what? I’m ok this way. I love mystery. It’s tasty.

Sidenote: If there is an award for best username/handle, then I should win it. Because mine is Clam Scene Investigation.

If you want to see my picks and follow along at home, you can do so here. Send me your picks too!

My posse and I roll into a supermarket because that is how my posse rolls, and we are looking for ice cream because we are a very hard posse, and we roll into the “ice cream & frozen novelties” section. And next to the Klondike Eskimo Pies and next to the Popsicle Brand Fudgsicles, we see this.

READ CAREFULLY.

FROSTY PAWS.

IT IS ICE CREAM FOR DOGS.

Ice cream. For. Your. Dog. For your goddamn dog, you guys!

A few things:

1. This “treat” is right next to shit people eat. Like nestled between frozen novelties specifically created for HUMANS. Between the Klondike Bars and the Fudgsicles. As if to say “IF YOU LOVVEE KLONDIKE BARS, THEN YOU’LL LOOVVEE FROSTY PAWS!” I can foresee a situation where someone quickly picks this up because of the cute packaging and then goes home and then, upon discovery, becomes sad. And maybe, just maybe, a little curious. Like, hmm, what if I tried this? And after a few sniffs and rudimentary licks and a double-dare from your stoner of a roommate and then a choke and a gag, the depression truly sets in. Not to mention the fact that when you want ice cream, you really want fucking ice cream and now you are left without ice cream. Or a dog. That is the true sad story there.

2. The packaging looks very close to a kids’ cereal, which makes the whole thing even more disturbing.

3. JUST BECAUSE PEOPLE EAT ICE CREAM, DOES NOT MEAN DOGS SHOULD.

4. DOGS DO NOT NEED ICE CREAM. They lick their own buttholes. They eat garbage. They don’t need ice cream, you guys.

This kind of goes along with what I was saying before about dogs not needing sweaters because they are born with them. They don’t need ice cream. They don’t have to eat the same food as you. In fact, they shouldn’t. I imagine, and correct me if I’m wrong here, that when packs of dogs were running buck-wild, they did not eat ice cream. A raging mutt did not hunt and catch a squirrel and think, god I can really use a Frosty Paws right now. They also did not think, man life would be so much cooler if I were in someone’s handbag.

Ugh. I can’t stand that dogs are turning into people. We have enough people on this planet. Let dogs be dogs. THUMBS DOWN!!!!

A new store just opened on my street, where a men’s shop used to be. This men’s shop kind of sucked. So I was hoping something useful would pop up in it’s place. Like a bookstore or a music store or a natural foods store with a bulk section (I LOVE bulk sections shut up) or a candy shop or a musical instrument shop or a nice, chill bar or a place with really excellent coffee or a shop that serves stuff on toasts or a place that only sells kale because kale is tasty or a place that teaches you how to tie bowties or maybe a public living room where you can go and hang out and watch TV and cook dinner or a place with ping pong and pinball. What i mean to say is that the potential for awesome was very, very high.

It’s a store called Wool and the Gang hahaha The tagline is “Crazy Sexy Wool”. This is where you can insert your own pun (Angela already said Celebrate Wool Times, Come on!) It is a high-end yarn place. Like fancy ass yarn. Fancy fancy yarn made by some ladies in some part of some place with some kind of animal raised on some kind of organic business so that it grows some kind of magical hair or fur that gets shaved and then spun by children with large dewy eyes and nimble fingers and during lunch they run around in mountain meadows. Mind you there is ANOTHER fancy yarn place a block away. This other yarn place happens to be expensive too. Can someone tell me WHY does my neighborhood need ANOTHER fancypants yarn place? Why not a Target or a Commes Des Garcon pop-up store or a place that lets you play with kittens and ducklings by the hour? A YARN store? Seriously, people. It’s bad enough there’s two doggie lifestyle places in my neighborhood.

Oh I meant to mention that this place also has dog sweaters. Dogs don’t need sweaters. They are born with sweaters already. That is what makes dogs rad. They come clothed, it is awesome. So now, in a block, there are three places where one can buy doggie sweaters. This is NOT including the American Apparel down my street which also has doggie clothes, but those aren’t sweaters, more like gold lamé unitards. For dogs. Obviously. Duh.

I’m sorry, dear friends. I was sick. I know it’s no excuse, and I’m sorry I haven’t been here. But now I am back. I can now climb three flights of stairs without coughing up an alveolar sac, which, in case you’re wondering, looks NOTHING like a nutsac. Seriously. I myself was surprised. I mean a sac is a sac is a sac, right? Like a sac can only look like one thing, and that is a nutsac. But, NO. I was WRONG. Alveolar sacs and nutsacs actually do not look alike. I feel like I’ve been living a lie all these years. Feel free to share that fact. That one is yours to keep.

This has been a week of me breaking shit. The most recent casualty is my computer mouse at work. I think I spilled coffee and water on it too many times, so it got fed up and said, eff you loser and then the little red light wet dim, just like that scene in the original Terminator where the robot gets crushed in the George Foreman grill and it’s little red eye goes dim and it is all, so sad…so dark…and cold…so…alone. That was my computer mouse. Later it came back as sweet fucking liquid metal, and then it came back again, this time as a girl that is not Charlize Thereon but kind of looks like her if you squint, but I didn’t see that one, so I can’t say for sure. Then I guess it came back again to the past to go back to the future. God these things are so confusing sometimes. I need to waterproof my life, that is the lesson learned, friends.

I also busted my wallet. Normally I bust wallets because it’s filled with COLD HARD CASH and it’s like yo dawg, can you break a C-note and they are like uh no don’t call me dawg and I don’t have change, and I’m like whatever, loser!

So here is what I’ve figured out: In order to buy a wallet you need to spend money. That means it comes out of a wallet. But you don’t have one. But let’s say you somehow buy a wallet, but then you don’t have money to put in it. Like, this is some kind of weird black hole/time-space thing, maybe.

I think I had mentioned that a lesson learned was to GET DELIVERY when YOU ARE EFFING SICK, instead of going to the grocery store like you are some kind of superhero.

So I did.

I got delivery from a place I always get. I got what I always get, which are veggie balls (heh I said balls). They are spicy. Spicy is good. Veggie balls are good. Food is good. Right? NO.

I bit into a veggie ball and got…A BOLT.

HOLY. SHIT. Seriously. Those are my veggie balls (heh I keep saying balls). That is a BOLT. Luckily I did not bite ON the bolt. It went into my facehole, and then immediately sunk to the bottom of my mouth and I thought…hmm…what is this thing. Is it a rock? NO. IT’S A BOLT.

So the good news is that it wasn’t rusty. The bad news WAS THAT IT WAS IN MY VEGGIE BALLS.

So I called the manager, who was so apologetic and very sweet and made ammends. And I’ll keep ordering from this place again, but I was like “you know, these things happen…I guess.” So he says,

“I know this is going to sound weird, but…can you give me the bolt?”
“What?”
“Do you still have it? I want to show the kitchen.”
“Yeah sure, but…it was in my mouth, is that OK?”
“I don’t care where it’s been. This should not have happened.”

So, I wrapped it up in plastic wrap. You know. To go. He sent over a delivery person to pick up the bolt.

But, hey, good news, I’m still sick.

I was feeling hungry. So I said to myself, dude it’s Tuesday. You have not left this house since SUNDAY afternoon. It is time to join the living. Also my apartment is quite small, so imagine if you had stayed in your bedroom for 48 hours and didn’t leave. Hopefully your bedroom has a bathroom. But you get the picture. It sucks. Cabin fever in addition to swine flu-slash-throat gonorrhea. No good, boss.

So I left to go to the grocery store for soup. This grocery store is several blocks away. I got the soup and a half gallon of juice (no not Jews, juice) and pasta sauce and somehow that all cost $26. NYC does not care if you are sick. It just wants to eat your money and nosh on your soul until you are like those fried chicken bones you always see on the subway, Jesus people, you should clean up after yourself, that shit would NOT fly in the House of Choi.

So anyway I’m walking home and it is clear I should have opted to eat something lighter because I’m too weak to hold my bags. So I stop on a bench to rest like a block from my apartment and now I am writing this.

I am sick.

Lesson for the kids: Always get delivery.

My good friend Karina lives in Brooklyn and has this backyard where feral cats just roam where they please. Totally not a problem. Karina traps them and then gets them spayed/neutered and then either tries to find homes for them if they can live alongside human mammals or ‘releases them back in the wild.’ The Wilds of Brooklyn.

So the other day she started seeing this cat that had a rope tied around its middle. Pretty tightly. So tight, in fact, that the beast had a big gash from it. The cat was not in good shape. So, Karina trapped the beast, and took it to the vet. He sewed her up and said the cat was most likely PITBULL BAIT.

DUDES. PEOPLE. STOP BEING ASSHOLES.

I know we raise cows and all that to eat. Yes, it’s cruel. It’s horrible. But to go through the trouble of training dogs to be complete killing machines because you can exploit their ability to follow orders and please their owners is a real dick move. Most of those dogs die, and probably not from wounds, but from infections. Which is a horrible way to go. I much rather get shot then die slowly of gangrene. But then to use a cat to tie it to a stake somewhere to get your pooch all riled up is like adding another layer of assholery I don’t even get. A lot of cultures have some kind of cruel animal fighting thing. But a lot of cultures also have that folktale where a kid kills a little bird and the dad is all, dude, you killed a bird, why would you do that? It can’t feed a family, you are a dick, etc. One of those harsh life lessons about mortality and precious life blah blah blah. There’s no Native American folktale where the kid trains dogs to fight and dad is like GREAT JOB KID HIGH FIVE.

Anyway this cat escaped, probably by chewing through the rope. The vet’s office made Karina name it, so she called it Houdini. While at the vet, Houdini got spayed. So now it’s recovering.

She is pretty cute. Looks like she got ink on her face. Karina can’t keep Houdini because her husband is more or less deathly allergic. He is in my top five most unhealthiest friends. Seriously. He might be number two, after my friend Doug who’s allergic to anything made up of atoms. Neither here nor there.

Right now, Houdini’s in a cage at Karina and John’s, shaking and cowering. Karina can pet her head and touch her nose and the cat appears to sniff her. The choices now are to release her back into the wild after she recovers or find a home. But it’s not clear whether she’s a domestic cat that just got Admiral Shaft or if she is feral. She’s not hissing or snapping, but she’s also in some kind of strange comatose state of fear. Anyway, the ideal situation is to find a home, if the cat seems domesticated. But she wouldn’t be a very cat-like cat. I mean she could eventually, hopefully. But she probably needs a home with patient and sensitive owners.

I’d take her but if you saw my apartment you’d think she was better off living in a cage. So there you go.

If you’re interested, email me.

Is 09-09-09 over because I am over it. Listen. It’s going to happen once a year until 12-12-12. We’ve been doing it since 01-01-01. And by “doing it” I mean doing the sex making act haha jk jk jk. But not jk about the 090909 part.

I’m now in San Francisco. In the airport. My flight arrived an hour early so I’m now waiting for my ride, Dr. Jared, to pick me up and feed me Mexican food. Dudes. I’ve been in SF for like ten minutes and I haven’t had any Mexican yet. Like WTF PEOPLE. I need to get it on. And by “get it on” I mean the sex making act haha jk jk jk. MEXXICCAANNN. In the belly of this beast, narch!

I’m going to a wedding. But I swear this is the last wedding I’ll ever go to…until the one I have in October…and the one the weekend right after that one. Also in California. Ugh. I have no money. The last cent will be spent on A BURRITO. My needs are so small, surely they can be met? Yes? Yes!

Anyway I am excited to be here. I almost missed my flight. You know how there is always one jerk who gets on the plane super late, all sweaty and discombobulated, and the doors close right after they get their sad out-of-breath asses onto the plane? That wasn’t me. I was the one in front of that person. Also sweaty and panting.

Fact: Humans have more than five senses.

Fact: Balance is a sense.

Not fact: Bees taste good.

Leave yours here.