Q. What are some perfect tens you can recommend? You know, like books, movies, films, experiences, objects??
A. This is such an important question. Here are Lord Birthday’s Perfect 10s (Fall 2022 Edition):
High Hopes, Secrets & Lies, and Life is Sweet by Mike Leigh
Driving through heavy fog and someone in the car feeling the need to announce the fog, saying something like “Whoa fog.” 10/10
Clinging to a Scheme by The Radio Dept
Double Negative by Low (RIP Mimi Parker)
“Trouble Sleep Yanga Wake Am” by Fela Kuti
A Walk Across the Rooftops by The Blue Nile
Fludd by Hilary Mantel
Atlantics by Mati Diop
Inferno by Eileen Myles
Agony by Mark Beyer
“Drip Dry Eyes” by Yukihiro Takahashi (also the video)
Capri Suns (the drink)
Shriek by Wye Oak
Steve McQueen & I Trawl the Megahertz by Prefab Sprout
Ctrl by SZA
Souvenir sweatshirts (New York City, Hilton Head, random lighthouses, etc.)
Passing for Human by Liana Finck
Waking up at 6 a.m. on Saturday morning and then taking a one-hour nap at 10.
After Hours by Martin Scorsese
That 1960 photo of Julie Andrews sitting on a B&W motorcycle.
Q. I’m worried that spiders jump on my bed when I’m not home. How can I prevent this?
A. Spiders are jacks of all trades. They can do it all. Music. Jumping. Walking down a moon-encrusted thoroughfare. A spider’s game is a bad one. You will lose! To the spider. If you are in a game with it. So I applaud your question: it says that you too have been blasted by a Spide at some point.
Guess what I call them Spides. Not gonna pretend otherwise. That’s what I call a spider. A “spide.” Spide in the bed. Spide on my head. All of my friends hate it. They are like “It isn’t even a good nickname.” But I just think a Beefy King Spide told them to dismiss my wit. Ha ha I think they got paid to be a shill for some lunatic Beefy King Spide if I am being way way honest. My friends are weird. I am lonely.
Anyway I guess the best thing to do, in your case, is to put a lot of oils on your bed so any potential Spide just slides right off. There is nothing else to be done. Also: prayer. But let me first ask: How many oils do you have? Can you make some oils to add to your current crop? Coconut, belly, zucchini, grapeseed, ligament, parabola - all good oils. Bye.
Q. Should I go to Italy or to Canada?
A. Cool I have no context for this question - a perfect scenario for me. I think you should go to Canada. Italy seems fine. It is a country shaped like a nightclubbing shoe. It has beaches and disco and Formaggio. Beauty of the sea. Apartments like stacked graham crackers. Little motorcycles. Shall I continue? The best movies. The singer Mina singing the song Se Telefonando. (Listen to it - You will CRY in your home.)
But Canada is of course the better choice. They let you eat all the crumpets you want and they let you wear entire outfits composed of Jean. Canadians laugh for no reason, in Canada, as well. Probably because it is bleak and horrible, living in the wastelands, which is what Canada mostly is. America (my home) has wastelands no doubt. But Canada’s wastelands are not romantic. They have no Bruce Springsteen Nebraska album to make you feel like your cruddy prairie life is good, or like the absolute bogg hole of nowhere is a kind of heaven all its own. This is why Canadians are funny. Because the only other option is death in a dumpy field.
I went to Canada once—no twice. Montreal and Vancouver. Montreal is pretty but I was scared to order crumpets. My French did not compute. They were angry. They slapped me with their soft elite-level hands. And oh God their eyes, their exquisite French Canadian eyes. Nobody liked my songs. I sang them everywhere. On the train I got stabbed with a small plastic sword, as well. It didn’t hurt but still I felt like a big dunk. Vancouver on the other hand? Expensive as CRAD, but beautiful beyond my most capitalized wonder. A city on the sea, with forest, and water, and lights for endless miles, and tea? I sat on a pier one afternoon and I could taste the tranquility. And then I had to pay for my lunch—a bongo beef sandwich and a cup of old Dasani water—which together came out to the very reasonable price of $78 USD. A galling moment in my young life.
Q. Should I stay in med school even tho it’s so hard and I’m so floppy?
A. FLOPPY? Uh you should probably quit. I can tolerate floppiness in my lawyers, my baristas, my city magistrates, even my river rafting guides (who are all named like “Hutch” and “Karina”). But a floppy DOCTOR? I cannot support it. How was brain surgery, sweetheart? Good. I loved getting my brain done. Except for the part where the brain doctor flopped midway through and now I can’t play Jenga anymore. However, I can still play sad chess, and Parcheese, and fig toss, and Fairy Wonder. Honey there is no game called Fairy Wonder. Exactly! See! My brain requires medical butter.
Can you solve your floppiness? Yes, with vitamins. That is how I solved mine. I take a crud-load of vitamin E, which I think is for Skins and Sturdiness. No no E is for Lung Vent. F is for Internal Holes. H is for Skins and Sturdiness. Yes I take the skin pills of the H family, curiously disregarding all warnings from my personal nurse, Clovis. Clovis is like Stop eating skin pills! And I am like Clovis! I need these! For my calamities! Like how every time I try to tell the truth I am still basically 85% lying! Clovis!!!
Q. I am so in love with my partner, but we want different things from life. Can it work?
A. No, it cannot. Sorry. My job is to tell you the truth. And the truth is no.
But hold on! Lord Birthday! you are saying to yourself. You are saying: maybe we will change together. Maybe we will want the same things someday. My therapist said it’s possible. The zodiac said: maybe so. And still I am saying to you: no.
My one true belief is this: that we, as human beings, simply know things in relationships. We know. We have the burden of Silent Insight. We know when something is wrong. Or when things are over. Or broken. We just know. We always know. Yes, it is important to have hard conversations with your partner, to clarify your understanding of each others’ realities. But I’m talking here about one level up: the knowing that precedes all the talking, all the 1 a.m. rhetorical arm wrestling, all the swimming through electrified emotional waters on the train back to Deleware after introducing them to your family and realizing that they do not get along at all, but it’s not that big of a problem right ha ha, no relationship is perfect ha ha, it’s fine it’s fine, we are strong, and happy, and invested in the practice of Grace. Plus we think each other is hot. Which is big.
Is this relationship bad for me? You already know. Are we deeply misaligned in ways that matter? You already know. Well LB LB LB maybe it’s just a matter of working harder & being patient. That can change things. Yes I say. Sure. It can. But will it change THIS particular thing? The thing you are casually worried about more days than not? The thing that floats into your awareness when you’re in transit? The thing that you don’t mention to your friends or to your therapist because you just know they will be like Uh come again, mon frère? DITCH THAT DOOMED CREATION.
Will working harder change THAT particular thing? The thing that is fundamental to companionship? You already know the answer. It will not. I am not being scary right now. I am just telling you what you already know. And I, my friend, say that if you do nothing else on this disordered arcade planet, I believe you must always act in alignment with what you know to be true, as far as “true” can be understood. You must try very hard to do that. But it is so very difficult. And yet in the end it is what determines the cosmic density of a person - whether they push through this searing blue truth-pain, cannonballing themselves toward an unknown slit of Honest Hope, or they do not. Yes it is easier, more fun, less lonely, and let’s be TITANICALLY clear—sometimes even thrilling—to live in self-deception. But it will destroy so many sparkling rooms within you, and you won’t even notice. You will drift while driving and no car will honk. You will float toward wavy horizon ships until you cannot remember the feel of the beach. And so, my friend, you’re going to have to choose. And the good news is: you already know what to do. Good luck.
The last one is one of the most painfully true things I have ever read.
Your number four perfect ten is also a perfect twelve and I cried while flossing my teeth, because it is also a 15.