Slaughterhouse 21

START TIME: 9:38 PM
END TIME: 10:26 PM
WORD COUNT: 847

This week's question: If you could invent a holiday, what and when would it be? What special traditions would take place on that day? – Nancy Beagle

Inventing holidays is tough work. It’s the sneering contention of too many employers that we get too many holidays as it is, and in some cases reinventing holidays means reinventing religions, so someone will get upset.

Fear not. I’ve devised a solution. And it’s already about two thirds of the way towards being a holiday for most people, and I’ve become virtually professional about celebrating it myself. It’s your birthday. Your company’s probably already got provisions for you taking the day off.

You’re already thinking, drinking, stupid paper hats, cake, candles, presents and cards – we’re already halfway to a holiday there, right? Sort of, but you’re not quite there. I use my birthday like most people use New Year’s Eve – a time to reflect on the past year, compare mistakes, make plans for improvement, and try to commit to learning new things. See, New Year’s Resolutions are a collective invitation to failure, a chance for you and the crippled willpower of your acquaintances to commiserate before Valentine’s Day over the smoldering ruins of your good intentions. (Why yes, I am a member of a health club that I use year-round. Why do you ask?) But if you do it like this, it’s about you, getting better, moving forward, passing one more milepost on that Japanese bullet train towards Death.

1. You need to pick someone famous with the same birth date as you to compare yourself to. Many of my friends are nodding in recognition, as I’ve been doing this since I turned 11 and found out that I share the same birth date – June 30 – as former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson. Now, you might think that in the 23 years since this discovery, it’s been pretty one sided. Not so. During this stretch Mike was the heavyweight champion of the world and I was a sixth grader on summer vacation. I was a high school student and Iron Mike was incarcerated. I had a girlfriend and was riding bicycles through Door County, Wisconsin and Mike was biting Evander Holyfield’s ear off. I’m coming off a year in which I achieved major personal goals in triathlon, took some steps forward in writing, met some great new people and was featured in a documentary. Mike was featured in a documentary as well – the critically acclaimed “Tyson” which got rave reviews at Sundance. He’s also in some dumb summer comedy that premieres in two weeks. People say he’s doing better. I like to think I am, too.

What does this do? First off, it’s fun. Our culture’s obsession with celebrity provides you the superficial knowledge you need to give your year a thumbs up or thumbs down compared to whoever shares that date with you – and you can picture that somewhere else in the world, someone else is hearing the awful Happy Birthday song in as tuneless a manner as you are. (Interestingly enough, should something befall Mr. Tyson, there is another 6/30 birthday waiting in the wings to replace him, a man who could provide an equally intriguing comparison – Mr. Michael Phelps.)

2. For God’s sake, don’t go to work. I inherited this from the fact that I have a summer birthday, so while I never received a day at school where I wore a crown made out of construction paper and listened to the other children sing to me in a tuneless manner (which has no doubt fed my slavish quest for attention ever since), I never had to spend my birthday doing much of anything. If your life means so little to you that you would spend a day devoted to you at the office, you’re making a very serious mistake. It will be there tomorrow. Your goal is to go to bed that night confident that you had as good a day as possible. Even if you have the greatest job in the world – which, as you know, is making five hundred dollars an hour doing inventory for a blind liquor store owner – it will still be the greatest job in the world the day after.

3. At the very least, get out of your ZIP code. Don’t waste this holiday in bed. Not that I’m saying not to sleep in, but there are better things to do with the day than stay in bed. This isn’t some random Sunday somewhere. Get up. It counts.

I’ve spent birthdays in the Caribbean, over Greenland, in New Orleans, traveling 135 MPH towards Searchlight, Nevada in a convertible, and doing all manner of profoundly enjoyable things. I don’t like spending birthdays in the state. Go somewhere. It’s a great big world and the best present you can give yourself is to see more of it.

4. Age gracefully. And when you figure out how to do this – to accept that peaceful slide of the fallen leaf towards the soft, freshly mown grass – tell me how, won’t you? I haven’t the slightest idea.