I got flowers and cookies and other baked goods, a CD, books, DVDs, e-cards, and mail both electronic and snail. Plus, a whole lot of people did stuff from my birthday list. (I guess I should have kept "send cash" on there.) I'm actually quite flabbergasted, and I've only just begun working through my inbox and thank yous.

Last year, only a few people took the bait. This year, you get this and this. There's lots more-- someone even recorded themselves singing "Cassiecabana"-- but those two girls definitely win the crazy birthday love contest.

I woke up in Eleanor's bed; I think this makes me a universal object of envy, even though Eleanor wasn't in it at the time.

We had a great night; she took me out to a yummy vegan restaurant and then we watched Waiting for Guffman. We realized we had to watch it when we spent half our dinner conversation quoting it at each other. "California will be a sight for these weary eyes..." "People don't like fire poked... poked in their noses." She had to wake up early to go to work, but I was able to lounge around until ten or so. Well, eleven. Or so.

I strolled down to my workshop with Laurie and Joey (waking up in the Mission was such a luxury). I turned in a couple of really old poems. It's a new phase in my process. (Oh god, I said "process" again. I hate myself.) I'd like to learn how to extract new poetry from old, painfully bad poetry. Plus, I hadn't been inspired to write anything new this week.

At first, I didn't tell the girls that the poems were old, so they politely restrained their comments-- only smiles and raised eyebrows. When I finally admitted that the poems were from 1997 and they should feel free to eviscerate them, that's when they felt okay with cracking up at how bad the poems are. How bad are they, you ask?

One poem contains the line, in all sincerity, "I want to cry tears onto your perfect toes and kiss them off." That's right. Kissing tears off toes. The setting of that spectacular piece moves rapidly from a bathtub to a rose petal to a castle to a pair of chapped lips.

The other poem has something about "Taking your eyeballs and keeping them in my spare sockets." I remember thinking, at the time, that it was a really great line. Okay, crazy 1997 Mo. Where the fuck do you have spare sockets?

Laurie did an impression of a girl crying and aiming her tears at someone's feet, which made me almost pee my pants. Joey gave me a recipe for a love spell which included toe crying, eyeballs, and a castle. We were in hysterics.

Later on, I did manage to extract some helpful advice from them, and wrote two new poems. I'm not completely happy with them yet, but I got a great book of poetry, Verses That Hurt, for my birthday. The book has a poem about Cookie Monster committing suicide, that's how cool it is. And I have a feeling it will inspire me. I always get inspired by reading fresh new stuff.

Speaking of poetry, we got the proof back for the literary magazine. In the form of an actual book (minus the cover). And oh my god. It is so good. I mean, I know I do say so myself. But I am just so proud of my work as a writer, an artist, and an editor. I'm so proud of the work of my fellow staff members.

I can't wait to hold a real copy in my hands. I can't wait for people to see it.

Two important developments in the practical aspects of my life occurred today.

First, I took a proofreading test. One of my fellow students owns her own proofreading and editing company, and she pays her freelancers really well (more than I was making at the Company from Hell). I got an e-mail from her that said I nailed the test, and she is adding me to her roster of freelancers. This is excellent news.

I am not sure how much work she'll be able to throw my way. However, even a relatively small number of hours will allow me to quit my other job, or maybe cut back to one day a week. Which seems like a great cure for my recent burnout.

The second important development regards my possible teaching of a poetry class.

As you may remember, Joey and I originally both wanted to do a poetry workshop. She graciously said she would teach something else so I could do the workshop. In the meantime, her proposals got shot down by the staff, and I submitted a proposal that seemed fairly well received.

Today, one of our professors suggested we teach the workshop together, and split the stipend. I thought about it for about five minutes, and it seems like an ideal solution. I'd still get the experience of teaching the class, but it would be less responsibility, and theoretically, more fun. And as for the money, I'd far rather have my friend be happy than to have an extra $750 or whatever.

I mean, I'm really not as magnanimous as this makes me sound. I selfishly want Joey to stay around just because I love her, and this class is a means to that end. And then I could stop feeling guilty about getting an opportunity that she is missing out on.

Of course, I'd like the other half of the money, too. And I am a little disappointed at the idea of not getting to teach my very own class all by myself. But the alternative is too selfish to consider. If I were in her place, I would hope she'd do the same thing. It's the right thing to do.

And that's good enough for me.

Our class today (Dickinson) consisted of people giving presentations. Joey and I don't have to do ours until after spring break, so we just got to sit back and listen, and in my case, work on revisions of the crying toe poems.

One of the presentations was particularly interesting, about Dickinson's lexicon. They put together a concordance of her poetry. A concordance is a sort of chart that shows how many times a particular word shows up in a writer's work. It doesn't really give you any "answers" to anything, but it's like turning poetry into a mathematical exercise. It's fun.

Incidentally, this made me curious to run my own poetry and journal entries through a concordance, even if just to prove that I egregiously overuse adverbs (e.g.: egregiously). But I couldn't find a concordance program anywhere.

After class, we went out to the corner bar and had a few drinks.

For some bizarre reason, I decided to do the proofreading test right there. (I had forgotten to get it to my friend last week, and I just wanted to get it to her already). While I was busily writing, the rest of the party migrated to the pool tables in the back, eventually leaving me all alone.

Once I finished the test, I headed back there to tease them for leaving me all alone. Almost immediately, Mickey came over to say they were all going to another bar. He invited me, but it was still quite funny. It was like I was driving the crowds away. I missed having my sister there, to say her famous line: "Wow. They don't like you at all, do they?"

Then, I went home to boundless amounts of electronic love and a pile of presents to open, and that was my day. I'm currently watching Pump Up the Volume for the second time tonight, and looking forward to my day off tomorrow. I may go install SimCoaster in a moment. Life is rough.

Oh, in case you worry that all the birthday love is going to my head, there's always my cousin Lucy, who wrote me to say, "Isn't 26 when you start going through menopause?"

Yep. I'm expecting the first hot flash any second now.

"My birthday was a hoot. (It might have even started to venture into hootenanny territory, but I reigned it in.)"