30 years

At 4:13 am on November 8, 1974, I was born in Brockville, Ontario. I am the fifth of five children to my mother. Since then:

• I have lived in one country.
• And two provinces.
• I am technically still in my third decade.
• Although most would insist I am in my fourth.
• When I was five, I found out what the real difference was between boys and girls. I pitied girls.
• The only traditional birthday party I had when I was a kid happened when I was six.
• My seventh birthday was on a Sunday.
• I don't really like Crazy Eight's, but I will play it if I have to.
• I was the first kid to be able to multiply easily by nine.
• That's because I never forgot how easy it is to mulitply by ten.
• Like multiplying by nine, multiplying by eleven is also easy.
• In Grade six, I was a co-ringleader of a posse that once consisted of 12 members.
• One day, in 1993, I had 13 beers that killled the chance I had to lose my virginity.
• I have had sexual intercourse with exactly 14 women.
• When I was 15, the average age of first sexual intercourse for American boys was 15.7. I knew I was going to be way above average on that one.
• Sixteen Candles? Never saw it in its entirety until this year.
• I left Brockville at the age of 17.
• I shaved for the first time when I was eighteen. I didn't even really have to. Only this year do I need to shave as much as once a week.
• When I was nineteen, I drank too much and didn't lose my virginity. My overalls (which I thought were cool at the time) somehow ended up around my ankles on the dance floor in Kingston.
• There seemed to be no fewer than 20 attempts to lose my viriginity before I lost it at the age of
• 21, just four days after my birthday. I even bought an abridged copy of The Joy of Sex so I would be "prepared". That may have been my best year.
• The next February, I was at a Denny's in New Orleans with 22 other people when a drunk with a very large gun in a holster walks in and tells the manager to be careful about "them black folk", while patting "Ol' Betsy".
• At the age of 23, I ended my first relationship. It may have changed me quite a bit.
• I started the first day of my last job on November 24, 2003.
• I used to say that your life should be in order by the age of twenty-five, but somewhere along the way that ceased being a priority.
• 26 is the only number lodged directly between a perfect square and a perfect cube.
• When I was 27, I said to someone "If I am still living like a student when I am 37, I'll kill myself.".
• I wonder if I could fool myself into being more productive in a 28-hour day.
• This past year, at 29, I have gained important people and lost relatively unimportant jobs.
• 30 days, hath November.