birth-ds

this week, the past few days, have been full of birthdays.
my nephew, my roommate, a few pals, and my dad.

one of my nephs turned twelve on saturday. love you, nicholas! my nephew rules at all sorts of stuff. he's super good at music, and has a great ear and can just pick things up. he also rules at kid stuff, like comic books and video games. i have another neph (anthony) and a niece (sophia). they all rule a ton. i miss them all the time, and hate that i'm the only one in my family who isn't home in columbus. the good part of that is that when i go home, they are there, and always have been.

roomie megan o'neill turned 24. 24 was a good one, as memory serves, but 25 wasn't. i really freaked on that one, because i actually started feeling like i had to have answers for "what are you doing" questions, and that flipped me out since i knew i wouldn't have a good answer for many years to come, job-wise at least.

back to megan. she's great. that's her to the right, and us to the bottom. a year ago, i hardly knew her. she was my good pal melewski's roommate at a place (not) called the partydome, a pretty awful apartment that has been passed from improviser to improviser - complete with indoor outdoor carpeting and above a loud, unattended bar called the blarneystone. it was awful, but there were some historical parties there. anyway, in the fall of last year, melewski, abd and i wanted to move in together, and we naturally wanted melewski's cool room-bo to come with. we found a four-b just down the street, and it has been super perfect ever since. megan is a super close friend now - lovely, fun, smart, cute, true. she's moving out in about a month to live by herself for the first time. it'll suck for me, but now we're on two of the same teams in improv stuff, so i trust we'll see each oth all the t. and i can appreciate the growth involved, so i'll support it. nothing is the same as living with someone, but it'll have to do.

in addition to all the other wonderful birthdays out there, i mentioned my dad. it would've been my pop's 63rd on friday. i thought about it a ton while i was in vegas. the night i took the red eye, i flew over all those lights and wondered if my dad had ever been to vegas. i had no idea, and i'm guessing no. there's all sorts of things to hate about losing a parent early; the thing i hate most about losing him is that i don't have the chance to know him as an adult. we were great pals, me and my dad. all the memories i have still serve me well, but the things i don't know i don't get to ask, and if he hasn't been to vegas, we can't just go.

if any of this stuff has taught me anything, then it's to do something. do something. stay up late, wake up early, hang out with friends, see your family. have as many good relationships as you possibly can. everyone knows those things, right? - but i'm saying it out loud to remind me, too - to take a time out, to not be scared, to do. to do.

another lesson here? take your dad to vegas.