Happy Birthday To Me!

Yes, I am celebrating my birthday today. I’m in good company: also celebrating on 11-11 are Leonardo DiCaprio, Calista Flockhart, Demi Moore, Deana Carter, Kurt Vonnegut, and (ahem) Charles Manson.

I’ve already been given the best present ever: Barack Obama’s victory last week and Nashville's first Trader Joe's opening up the street from me. I don’t even care that Tennessee is one of the handful to states to lurch further to the right, which was totally predictable. We're one of those states that's nearly last in everything, or almost first in everything horrible. I think we're a little slow on the uptake. Hey, it's not our fault, there's all sorts of crap in the water here.

Here are a few other random birthday presents I’d like to have:

• From the news media: An end to the Sarah Palin stories. I’m tired of her, already. It’s time for her to go back to Alaska and worry about how she’s going to balance the state budget now that oil has dropped below $60/barrel.

• From my ISP: please fix whatever glitch has rendered me unable to access a host of blogs, including my own (once again, I can post but I can’t read comments). I have to go to a coffee house to read my own blog. Aargh. Second time this has happened.

• From E*Trade: Those talking baby commercials really freak me out. Find another spokesman, please. Giving cute little tykes adult mannerisms to sell us stuff is just creepy.

* From Rachel Maddow: More! Just ... more! Take that, Sean Hannity!