May 23rd HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Writing my annual "birthday poem" was extremely difficult this year. I'm not sure exactly why, but the difficultly probably has to do with the negative feelings I've had about my poetry for the last year or so. I don't know. Doesn't look right,  I read it and it just doesn't move me. It's not close to the work really great poets put out. But I did get something down on paper, or I should say, I got something down on the flash drive.

The birthday celebration is going along pretty well. Got up really early, eight in the morning, had coffee and jumped on the computer to see who wished me "Happy B-day." Of course there were the usual suspects, people who are friends primarily from Facebook. Sally Martinez  sent me a quickie pic with a note of best wishes. It made me feel sad in a way. When I taught at NMHU, Sally worked at the bookstore and ALWAYS remembered my birthday. I'd walk into the store and there'd be a huge banner over the casher's counter "HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ROBERT!" and I'd get a big cake and a Spider-Man toy of some kind. One year she got me a "Spider Robert" t-shirt. So wonderful!

I said it made me sad to think about Sally, the bookstore . . . I got fired from the job there at NMHU and that's what makes me sad. But you know what? I gotta stop this bullshit sadness, this depression. Yeah, my life has always taken a turn I didn't like. But a lot of it was my own fault. I just don't deal with life in the best ways. So, at least for today I'm gonna stop being so negative, accept where I'm at and what's going on in my life. At least for today I got no worries. I mean, hell! It's my birthday.