In fact, one year my sister tried to plan a suprise party for me. Considerable effort on her part. Two people showed up. Which is almost worse than no party, at least when you're 14.

Last year I had the pleasure of working a 12 hour night shift on my birthday. No one knew it was my birthday and it was just like any other day. Not horrific, but still dissapointing.

This year will be not much different. I will still have to work on my birthday and I have no plans to celebrate... But I still can't help getting a little excited about it. This bothers me immensely.

It's like I'm still somehow expecting this year to be different, but I'm not making any effort to change the outcome.

I've never had a horrible birthday, but I haven't had a great one for a very long time.

This year is the year I always had pegged as what was going to be the best year. I've always thought that this would be the best age to be. "Old enough to do stuff, and young enough to still get away with it."

But unless I make some major reformations, this will end up just like the last few. And I'll have no one to blame but myself.