Today (yesterday by the time this is posted) is my birthday. I normally don’t give a shit even though I no longer hate it. I care much more about my re-birthday (the day of my medical crisis), but as I said to Ian (who wished me a happy birthday and said he knew I cared more about my re-birlthday), I would not have a re-birthday if I didn’t have my birthday. I got several sweet messages, which warmed my heart. For the first time in ages, I didn’t actually dread my birthday. I talked to K for hours, which really did my heart and soul good. She is my soul sibling, and we connect on so many levels. I talked to my parents (fine), and my Taiji teacher sent me a nice message, too. And, much to my surprise, my brother’s GF sent me an email as well.
I have no idea how she knew! My brother doesn’t even wish me a happy birthday every year. Honestly, I’m not sure he knows what day it is exactly. I figured the way it came up was this. Anyone who knows me well knows that my re-birthday is more important to me. I celebrate it and mention it way more than my actual birthday (which is ZERO for the latter). I consider myself three-and-a-half years old rather than fifty….four? Yeah, that’s how old I am now. Where the hell has the time gone? The reason I’m not sure is because sometime around the beginning of the year, I add another year to my age. Why? No idea. So I’m never really sure how old I am. In Taiwanese culture, you’re one at birth, so that might be part of it? Dunno.
I used to hate my birthday because it reminded me of all the ways I’ve failed in life. Another year of futility. Yay. That’s so great. The only funny thing is that wehn I joined Facebook, you had to put your birthday and it was displayed no matter what. There was no way around it. So I put a fake birthday–some random day in January. Then I immediately forgot about it–until that day rolled around. I got dozens of happy birthdays on my Facebook wall, which tickled me immensely.
Once Facebook took away that requirement (that it had to be public), I put the real date–I think? Anyway, I stopped hating it a few years before my medical crisis. I became truly neutral about it (not studied neutral like I had been about my body, which meant not neutral at all), but I wasn’t positive. Now, I’m just grateful that I have people in my life who love me. No, I still don’t care about my actual birthday, but I care that other people care about me.
It lifted me, I will admit. To have that many people wish me a happy birthday, I mean. Well, except for my parents. That’s much more complicated, but I don’t want to talk about it because I don’t want to bring down my mood.
Everyone wanted to know that I did for my brithday. One, I had DF chocolate ice cream and DF/GF “Hostess cupcakes”, of which I ate one with the ice cream on top of it. That was really tasty. Two, I ordered myself a little treat. Can anyone guess what it was?
Anyone who said some kind of weapon is correct. I bought two bigger fans so I can do the Double Fan Form–which, by the way, I’ve actually started learning. It’s harder than I thought it would be, even with the slowed down tutorial, shown from both sides. I thought it was going to be pretty smooth-sailing, but I did notice that it was more intricate than the Fan Form (solo), which in itself gave me a fair amount of trouble. I’m not loving this Double Fan Form, but I’m only a few postures into it. I need to give it a fair shake–but there are other Double Fan Forms out there. I just want to say that because I am not feeling this Double Fan Form, and I don’t want to fall for sunken cost fallacy. If I’m not feeling it in five or ten postures, then maybe I’ll try a different Double Fan Form.
The bigger fans are 15 inches each instead of 11 inches. That doesn’t sound like much, but that’s nearly a third additional length of the original size. I am not sure why they need to be bigger for the Double Fan Form than the Fan Form, but I’m not against it. There are no really good fans, by the way. They’re just bigger, but with the same material and cheesy designs.
I’m really digging my fan/karambit combo. I’ve got the opening down (an adptation of other forms, and the first few posutres. I may want to buy better karambits at some point, but rubber is just fine for me for now. I should have four of them, but I can’t find two of them.
I also bought a pair of premium double swords. I’m very excited about this. I have been adapting the Sword Form to doing it with two swords, but I only have one steel sword. I’ve been doing it with one steel sword and one wooden one. This doesn’t feel great, obviously, so it’ll be better to use two steel swords (that are an actual set) rather than one wooden and one steel. I watched this video because this is is the exact set I was looking at, and the verdict was that it’s very good.
This is the present from me to me. We all knew it was going to be weapons-related because that’s my obsession. Why get myself anything else when I can get a shiny new weapon? I was contemplating a nice pair of deerhorn knives as well, but I can’t justify that right now. I have a serviceable practice set, and since I’m not actually doing the form yet, well, that will suit me fine.
There is such a nice set, though. There are actually three nice sets. One is a beautiful practice set with black handles. Another is a really nice set with dark pear wood handles. The third is called the wind and fire wheels that look like this.
I have more to say, and I will pick up on this tomorrow.