I never ever got to celebrate my birthday in style. In fact, I have the urge to dig a hole and bury my head in it when my birthday is approaching, not because I dread getting one year older but that I worry about being disappointed.

I am disappointed every year. That is why I am all nonchalant about the whole birthday thing.

I turned 40 last July. Yup. Missed the opportunity to make a big to-do out of mah birthday. But this year? This year is going to be different. This year I have a blog. And it is my blog, I’ll have an extravaganza if I want to.

So are you ready, Loren Sorenson?  You and I are going to party every day in July. Every Single Fucking Day. Heehaw!

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July 1st.

There is a lot to celebrate on July 1st.

Happy Birthday, Scary Mommy!

Happy Birthday, Estee Lauder, Sydney Pollack (RIP my good sir!), Dan Aykroyd, Liv Tyler, and one Pamela Anderson.

Happy happy day to my company and everybody who has paid their dues slaving away there!

Happy Some-Significant-Day to one of my favorite peoples in the world. Happy Canada Day!

(warning: I am not responsible if you cannot get the catchy tune out of your head)

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What is an extravaganza if we do not start it off with a bang?! What better way to start off any celebration than a Hometown Fest Carnival**? Complete with an Elvis Impersonator named Bob Elvis West?

Every Fourth of July weekend, I am forced to admit that No, we do not live in Chicago. We live in the Midwest, y’all. We live in a down-to-earth Midwestern town where all the blonde people with cigarettes hanging out the corners of their mouths seem to congregate at the carnival.

July truly is my lucky month because tonight, all the carnival people were very nice to me. I’d like to think it’s because I said thank you and please.

I went on some of the not-so-scary rides with the boys, and boy, the scariest of them all was the rotating bears in the ride called Bear Affair. (I can’t even make this shit up!) Mr. Monk had a great time making the bear we were riding in rotate at the speed of light by maniacally turning the table in the center. I became so dizzy that I had to close my eyes, leaning against Mr. Bear’s steely hollow body. It felt like being drunk but I didn’t have a single drop of alcohol tonight. I was high without any assistance. Yes, I have the ability to self-medicate. That’s one of my Secret Super Powers, peeps.

I put my hands up when we were on one of the rides that does nothing but go around and around really fast, first clockwise, then counter-clockwise. I screamed like a MoFo. It felt good. It felt really good. Later when Mr. Monk asked to get on the same ride again, I did not protest too much. Half way through the ride, some of the children were yelling loudly at the carnival worker, “Music please!” since earlier the ride was quite popular exactly because it was blasting all the popular teenybopper songs that every other child seemed to be lip-syncing to. I joined in loudly, “Music please! We want some Justin Beaver!” The kids sitting in front of me turned around with astonished looks and immediately, smiles. Yeah, right at that moment, we connected: me and two 10-year-olds. As we sped past by the control booth, I yelled louder, “FREE BIRD!”, and for safe measure, gave him the Hang Loose hand sign.

I did that every time I flew by the control booth. I did that again as he let me out of the exit.

My kids did not seem to notice my high spirits and odd behaviors because they themselves were psyched by the carnival. They were not embarrassed by me which in itself was a blessing.

It was a cool and cloudless night. A perfect evening. And we got a perfect ending for it to boot: As we made our way back to the car, we noticed the canopy of stars.

“Look! That’s the Big Dipper!” My 12-year-old shouted. Sure ’nuff the seven stars were right above us, clear as day, in the formation of a, eh, big dipper. It is July after all when the night sky is dominated by the Big Dipper.

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Is my birthday month awesome or what? Prepare to see unicorns, y’all!

** I’ve got pictures. This entire month is going to be picture-rich because I have decided to give myself a hobby… Damn it. Everybody needs a hobby and I am tired of writing down “reading, listening to music and going to the movies”. LAME-O! I will post the pictures tomorrow, which is today, which is supposed to be July 1st but of course it is taking a friggin’ long time to resize the pictures and upload them, and it is 3:30 am now on July 2nd but of course I need to officially start mah Birthday Month on July 1st… So you’ll just have to wait for tomorrow, no, today, and this post is supposed to be for yesterday…