You know how we all have older people we look up to and every time we see them on TV or in the grocery aisle, we can’t help but think, when I grow up, I wanna be just like you!

Well, my friend, Tammy, kind of gives me the same effect. Except that since she’s way younger than I am, my thoughts are more along the lines of, damn, if if only I was that cool when I was her age!

She’s one cool chick. And it’s not everyday that you encounter somebody with pink hair gushing about the time on her phone aligning with its remaining battery percentage, working out the numerology behind such fortuitous moment. Or how she makes you want to celebrate the 8th of August, the 8th month of the year, as your second birthday because with the Lions Gate opening, bitch, you have just been reborn!

She got me a present for my birthday. My real birthday. Which is pretty cool in itself. 10th of the 10th. Definitely saves me a lot of grief in filling out important government forms because I don’t even bother getting confused whether it’s on a mm/dd/year or dd/mm/year format. I breeze right through it. A very lucky number, indeed.

So, anyway, she got it for me for birthday in October. But with life and everything in between, was only able to swing by and drop it off early this month. Which was pretty awesome because it felt like like I received a birthday, Christmas, and New Year’s present all in one gift bag with a beautiful handwritten message, to boot.

Looking back, I guess it was the universe’s intention for me to receive her gift and her message late. After my dad’s death, I was able to appreciate it better. As if I had my own rebirth, painful as it was, when he passed away.

…all the love and happiness for this next cycle around the sun.

Happy birthday to me.

Of course, to show my appreciation, a little photoshoot of me wearing her present was in order.

“You look like Carmen Sandiego,” Jeff said.

I don’t know who that is but I wouldn’t mind being told I look like Carmen Electra. Ha!

And when the day is over and the glue in her artwork which she made in the library has dried, my all-time favorite birthday present leans her chubby cheeks on my shoulder and slowly drifts off to sleep.

There’s my little universe right there.

*Raven at 3 years old