Happy Birthday to Me

Thinking that a person only turns forty-six once, I resolved to make my birthday a good one.

I made arrangements with my coworker in advance. It didn't take much convincing to swap production days with him. He almost immediately agreed that I could edit and composite video for XSTREAM News on Wednesday—his normal day—if he took Saturday for me. Thus I sidestepped doing any work.

Why even go in, you ask, if I had no plans to be productive on the job? Put simply, I felt like watching a movie. This is one of the perks of working for a media outfit. XSTREAM has more than 14,000 movies and series in our system, and many of them I can't make time enough to watch. Consider also that my work desk has three curved twenty-four-inch monitors on it, while the screen of my TV in the cell spans a meager fifteen inches. Sure, there's a greater risk of interruption in the office, but things at XSTREAM are usually pretty laid-back on weekends.

The morning passed pleasantly. I chilled out by making an insane little animation of a talking egg that has my eyes and mouth, then watched a movie. I left at 1 o'clock for a visit from my mother and a good friend I hadn't seen in many months. The three of us shared some delectable brunchy food—quiche, croissants, and berry tarts—and delightful conversation for hours.

After I left the visiting room, satisfied and stuffed, I met up with a group of tabletop gamers in my housing unit. Secret Hitler is easy to learn and strategy-based, and it turns quite boisterous when you've got seven or eight players all trying to suss out who's a fascist and who's a liberal before Hitler is elected chancellor. Four games in, I drew the Hitler card and promptly outed myself on accident, earning me the title "Worst Hitler Ever"—kind of a compliment, if you think about it.

Before I called it a night, my gaming host for the evening gifted me a bowl of handmade no-bake cookies and a version of the game Catan that he painstakingly crafted. I had only showed up to play a game, not to accept a gift, so I consider the surprise an amazing and thoughtful addition to a wonderful day.

Some days, I almost forget that I'm in prison. The people who help me do that are the best gift-givers of them all. To them, my deepest, most humble thanks.