Monday, March 4, 2013

March Madness, as seen in Austin Woman Magazine.


In celebration of my birth month (who are we kidding, this tradition will never die!), here's a story I told in the March issue of Austin Woman Magazine. Shameless plug.

Enjoy.

I wish I were that cute as a rotund tween.
               
                In my youth, and well into an age where it stopped being cute and started being socially questionable, any time someone asked me when my birthday was I would sharply reply with a “March”.
                Like, the whole month.
                I would then go on to explain that the celebration of my birth was not limited to just one day - rather it was to take place on all 31 glorious days. Following the self-righteous explanation, I would often encourage my audience to shower me in a jubilee of gifts.  Most of the time, the audience who would have to endure my all-hail-for-I-am-queen tangents about how important it is to my social status that I get a pink Skip-It would be my parents. They’re good people.
                The month of my 10th birthday, however, I was finally introduced to reality. We were nearly 2 weeks into March and the only buzz around the house was the sound of my brother’s electric shaver as he perfected his angry, teenage, thunder-stealing double mohawk. Later, he will be kicked out of the house for obvious reasons. But that’s for another time.
                Appalled that no one was making a ruckus about me and all my glory, I tried to create my own birth-month buzz by planting pictures of things I wanted. I even created a convenient ranking system based on my level of want with Lisa Frank stickers.  Needless to say, no one cared. My dreams of continuing my celebratory birth month forever were being crushed with every passing moment.
When my actual birthday rolled around, I woke up to a phone call from my dad. Usually, he would call to schedule a time for him to whisk me away and spoil me with sugary treats and a trip to Toys-R-Us. Excited to answer, I began spouting off my expectations for the afternoon. This time, however, he called me at 7am to wish me a happy birthday from California and to let me know that my age will be in the double digits for the remainder of my life.
The rest of my 10th birthday was lackluster, at best. No Skip-It. No cookie cake the size of my torso (which happened to be very bulbous at the time, so that would have been beneficial). No surprise visits from famous celebrities. Just dinner. With my family. And no celebrities. And a box of 96 Crayola Crayons to accompany the myriad of coloring books I demanded.
I was blind to not see the downfall of my birthmonth coming. On my 8th birthday, I was attacked by a goose. On my 9th birthday, I harassed Chuck-E-Cheese and was removed from the scene. And just for laughs, on my 11th birthday my sister kidnapped me and drove us all the way to Abilene to see a mediocre country band – leaving my suitcase behind and forcing me to squeeze into her size 1 clothes that I’m pretty sure were made at Baby Gap.
But you know, in addition to the mass madness of basketball fans meticulously crafting their brackets and the madness that the onset of another Texas summer brings – my favorite form of March madness has got to be the flood of memories from my many years of birthday madness.
You’ll be happy to know that the celebration of my birth is now encouraged only the one day. 
Which is the 18th
Of March. 
I take cash.