37 Days

It's 37 days before my birthday. I thought of doing some kind of a countdown. I'm not sure I can keep it until Day 0. But I don't care. Right now, I'm here, writing down my thoughts... 37 days before my birthday.

I love birthdays--mine and everybody else's. It just feels special. To think that in all those 365.25 days every year, there's 1 day that's just for me. It's enough excuse to get mushy, to spend time with family and friends, to get drunk and pigout, to put on a new shirt and a new pair of jeans, to ban work.

I have always thought that my birthday, December 22, is special:

> Winter Solstice usually falls on this date--the longest night of the year, the start of winter, the time of year when the Earth is farthest from the sun. One of the two times when the huge piles of rocks at the Stonehenge in England are in perfect alignment with the sun; the other being the Summer Solstice.

> The first day of Capricorn.

> It is the feast day of St. Zeno--*Martyred soldier at Nicomedia (modern Turkey). He was seized and condemned to death for laughing while Emperor Diocletian (r. 284-305) offered a sacrifice to the Roman god Ceres. Zeno had his jaws shaffered and was then beheaded.* According to my parents, I was named after him. I don't think it was because they were devout Catholics. I suspect that they were just too lazy / too busy / too uninterested to think of a name for their 6th child, so they looked up whose feast day it was, and voila! I got an uncommon name. Oh, but the don't get the wrong impression. I love my name. It's unique. And it means something, unlike those portmanteau names.

> I share this birthday with Giacomo Puccini, Diane Sawyer, Maurice and Robin Gibb, Ralph Fiennes, Vanessa Paradis, and Jordin Sparks.

According to Friendster, my horoscope for today is: Put your household issues on the top of your priority list today. Fix up your home.

I did. Last night, I bought stuff for the house. And today, I rearranged some of the appliances and furnitures, and installed some things. Etc. And I was my own handyman.
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