i know that probably comes off as selfish and spoiled, but it was really more of a control issue. as mentioned, the premise of being in a room with all of these people, and having them pay all this attention to you....if you're an extrovert (and sarah is extraordinarily extroverted), that probably sounds great. if you're the kind of severely introverted person that i am, it's actually a kind of a hellish proposition - beyond a chore, but actually a sort of a nightmare. 

so, coming face to face with the reality of needing to deal with everybody i know on short notice....i couldn't deal with it, psychologically. it was too much. i shut down, and stormed off.

there was one year when sarah tried to throw me a surprise party and i actually got really angry about it; i took it as an invasion of privacy, a betrayal of trust.

so, i refused to go. instead, i sat in my room by myself like i always did, and still always do. and, they had the party without me. 

it's probably the only birthday party i'll ever have.

i think the last time i had a birthday party was when i was about twelve years old.

and, while i realize this is unusual, i'm not particularly phased by it. 

but, am i getting fed up?

sure.

i might have to get something with a screen in it at a pawn shop.

i don't want to spend another second troubleshooting operating systems problems on this laptop.

i'll reformat twice a day, if i have to.

it's true that i haven't had a person in my life that i'd consider a friend in well over ten years, which is...i don't think that friendship is consistent with capitalism. what capitalism does is reduce friendship to a market relationship, a quid pro quo, and i don't have any interest in that. actual friendship cannot exist in a market society, it's impossible. so, i tend to avoid people, under the full understanding that they're just in it for themselves.

i'd like to meet some people that actually act and think like anarchists, but it's hard when the system pushes things down the way it does. the reality is that i don't really like hardly anybody.

so, i'm spending another birthday by myself, and it's true that i don't have any friends to spend it with. but, it's also true that i didn't actually celebrate birthdays when i did have friends.

if you ask the people that i've called friends in the past, i can't imagine that any of them will actually know when my birthday actually is, and the reason is that i've probably never actually told them. the exceptions would be some people that knew me when i was very young, and the single ex-girlfriend i have, from 15 years ago. i wouldn't expect anybody else that's known me to know, because i've never celebrated it.

why haven't i celebrated it? well, i've always thought it was kind of pompous. but, the real truth is that i was just that introverted. if the premise was that a birthday is my day, a day where i'm special, the last thing i'd want to do is bring people over to my house and entertain them. if it's my special day, then leave me the fuck alone, thank you.

but, i'll be 39 years old at just past midnight.

that means i've got 12 months left of being 30-something.

i was hoping that the machine would stay stable, but the bluescreen came back almost immediately. this chromebook simply doesn't have the software i need to do the things i do, and i wouldn't for a second think to leave my personal data in the cloud either (that's insane - i leave it on an external drive).

but, i have some show lookaheads to do while i'm reformatting. i should be multitasking, but if i can't then whatever....

k, so i'm back up on the laptop.

i'll need to check some loose ends before i get back online, clean some posts up and get back to what i was doing. which was...uh....

i was working on 12/2013. and listening. i was almost done...

i'm sorry.

i slept far too much. i think i'm awake...going to make some eggs, before i hit the shower...

i think the stripper we really want to see, though, is queen harriet.

if 'prince harry' was a handle for a gay stripper, you know what you'd get don't you?

that's a bear. clearly.

canadians are pretty welcoming to people that are claiming refugee status, which is abstractly the right concept, here.

we don't want to support a royal family.

we already have to support the trudeaus.

i'm not referring to anybody as prince anything, unless it's a stage name for a band or a handle for a gay stripper.

if harry...what is his last name, even?....harry windsor? harry wettin? 

if harry whatshisface and megan markle want to come to canada as private citizens and get jobs and pay taxes, then that is a question for immigration to ponder. i wouldn't imagine myself qualified to make a decision such as that.

but, as a canadian, i feel no particular attachment to the monarchy, and do not want to see the country placed in a situation where it needs to accommodate a bunch of aristocrats that appear to be being expelled from their aristocracy due to base racism. 

i mean, it's always sad when a family refuses to accept people because they're different, sure. and, like i say - it's up to immigration to rule on immigration claims. but, canada is not a colony of the british empire, and not an escape mechanism for feuds within the royal family.