"The Perfect Gift"

So, my birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks.  I don’t know about you guys, but I like to celebrate my birthday.  I know some people who don’t celebrate their birthdays anymore for some reason.  Charlie, for example, doesn’t do much on his birthday.  Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t seem to give a shit either. 

However, whether it’s hosting a simple dinner with friends at Taverna Tony (my usual birthday spot) or buying myself something special that I’ve been wanting or enjoying a combination of the two, I always try to do something.  Birthdays are great.  And, although I try to discourage my friends from buying me gifts and things, I usually wind up getting a bunch of bottles of wine and spirits and, if I’m really lucky, maybe even a couple of Criterion Collection DVDs. 

The reason I discourage gift-giving isn’t because I don’t like gifts; I love them.  I’m just a difficult person to shop for.  Scratch that, I’m a pain in the ass.  (Mom, if you’re reading this, you must be smiling.)  Why am I pain in the ass?  Well, it probably has something to do with the fact that I’m very, very particular when it comes to some things.  I don’t just want any book, for example.  I want books like my last conquest, “Collected Screenplays” by Andrei Tarkovsky, which is rare, out-of-print, prohibitively expensive, and, typically, must be ordered through a seller in the Amazon.co.uk marketplace (or a similar used book dealer in the UK). 

In fact, most Christmases, my list becomes so specific, not to mention outlandish, that my mom just tells me to order a few of the things I want and, then, reimburses me later.  After years of accidentally ordering the wrong editions of various books and having to return them, I think she’s finally been beaten into submission.  I don’t want to sound like an ingrate or anything, but there are key differences between Steven Soderbergh’s “Sex, Lies, and Videotape” as published in May 1990 by Harpercollins and the edition published in February 2000 by Faber Reel Classics.  Actually, despite the occasional accident, my close friends and family often do a great job because they somehow manage to find me things that I didn’t realize I wanted or, in some cases, always wanted but never thought I’d actually get.  Which brings me to the subject of today’s blog. 

Recently, I started seeing a girl, who, for the time being, will remain nameless.  My birthday falls on July 8th and hers falls on the 15th.  Sadly, because of my recent business trip to HK, we quickly realized that we wouldn’t be able to spend our birthdays together.  And so, we decided to celebrate early.  When it came time to exchange gifts, I was feeling pretty confident that I’d covered all my bases.  After all, even though I’d spent the previous month traveling around Europe, I had made a point to pick up a few things along the way and, even though they weren’t fancy, per se, they were sentimental...

Swish. 

Then, it came time to open my present.  Honestly, I was more than a little worried.  She had asked me a few seemingly random questions during the weeks leading up to our rendezvous, which I correctly interpreted as “fishing.”  (For example: “When you sign your name, do you do it as ‘Dax Phelan’ or ‘Joseph Dax Phelan’ or ‘Joseph D. Phelan?’” Etc.) 

Sneaky, huh? 

Anyway, my gift came in black box about the size of a TV remote control.  I unwrapped the matte black paper, saw an insignia that took my breath away, and opened the box to reveal…



In this photo: Mont Blanc Starwalker (Black Resin & Platinum).









Swish.  She did it.  She actually did it.  She’d read my mind.  And she does that a lot.  I’m not exaggerating when I say that I’ve dreamed of owning a pen like this for twenty years.  In fact, I’ve wanted to own a pen like this long before I even knew that I wanted to write.  When I finally did decide that I wanted to write for a living, I dreamed of owning one of these even more. 

However, for some reason, and perhaps some of you will relate to this, as badly as I wanted such a writing instrument, it wasn’t something I ever wanted to buy for myself.  I secretly wanted someone to give it to me.  I wanted someone to really take the time.  I wanted someone to really take the time to figure out the perfect gift for me.  I wanted someone to spend as much energy choosing a gift for me as I spend choosing gifts for my loved ones.  I wanted someone to be inspired. 

Alas, in twenty years, it never happened.  There’s no mystery as to why.  It’s a tall order.  I mean, seriously, to hope that someone is going to read your mind is an absurd pastime.  Ridiculous.  Idealistic.  Silly.  Ill-advised.  Flat-out absurd.  The list of adjectives goes on.  Ironically, about six years ago, I actually bought a similar pen as a gift for someone else.  When that person didn’t seem to appreciate it, a wound was opened.  It was one of many and it never seemed to heal… until now.  

Anyway, this is all just a long way of saying…

Thank you, baby.  I’ve never really thought of myself as a lucky guy.  But I’ve been feeling pretty lucky lately.  

-Me

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