If Sunday, July 4, 2004 is your birthday:
* You develop a unique way of looking at money and financial matters.
* Your thinking will delight both associates and partners.
* Visualize and plan for more of what you want out of life.
* Home security and perhaps a deeper or deepening bond in your life mark this year. You will do whatever it takes to achieve just that.
* You willingly work hard, and you have unusual endurance.
* A change of residence or an upgrade of some type occurs this winter.
* If you are single, you meet people easily. You will want to be close to one person in particular.
* If you are attached, your relationship will flourish if you put 100 percent into it.
* Aquarius inspires you.
- Jacqueline Bigar, Astrologer

"I'm Back! I'm Back!"
I think I've finally snapped out of the funk I've been in for the last several days... but honestly, I'm starting to feel like I'm perpetually snapping out of some funk.

My life is an old joke I've heard a million times before but still gets me everytime.

"What's the Occasion?"
Well, I'm 22. And as such, I'm past the point where birthdays can be anything but a bit of a hassle. I hate to be one of those people, but I'm totally one of those people. From this point on, July 4th is going to be that day when I feel an odd sense of pressure to really enjoy myself, even though my mom did all the work, I remember.

This year's birthday haul included:
* Luggage from my mother
* Mermaid Avenue Volume One from my littlest sister
* The DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics from my oldest little sister
* Essential Spider-Man Volume 4 (including the first appearance of Hobie Brown) from Brent Jones, Part Two
* A Zippo lighter inscribed with the sage-like wisdom and semi-inside joke "Fuck Communism" from My Crazed Roommate
* A subscription to Spectacular Spider-Man from Kate

"The Strength to Take Those Dreams Out Into the World"
Apparantly, my sister told my father to tell me to "Get off my ass." This, of course, was in regards to future plans/career/growing up and all that. However, my sister's advice ran contrary to the advice my father -- who, again, was not killed by a big giant bee -- has been giving me about taking a Zen approach in letting come what may: "Follow the mysterious coincidences and you will know when it is time to sieze the moment."

Now run this against my mother buying me luggage and trying to pin down a day to fly me out to Jersey for a structured life of work that follows a good working plan, and I think why the two of them are no longer married and I'm so conflicted.

You think I could only let one down and not the other, but I always get the felling that I somehow miraculously accomplish both.

"He Doesn't Know What to Think"
I'm twenty-two-years old. I don't know what to say to my father. I've still got this odd urge to draw stick-figures -- which makes sense, because I still haven't finished Scenes from the Next. There's at least one person in the world to whom my friendship means nothing. And I get up in the morning to watch Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends.

In my funk, I was giving a lot of thought to that old saw by Saul about putting away childish things. You know, burning the Spider-Man sheets and turning off the Cartoon Network. I don't want to be the 37-year-old guy who comes to the comic book store every week to buy Teen Titans, but the thing is, I think I'm going to be the 37-year-old guy who comes to the comic book store every week to buy Teen Titans no matter what.

I'm not a man, am I?

I don't know what it takes to be a man, but I haven't achieved any of the trite little markers that once marked such a thing. I'm not particularly brave. I can't grow a beard. I shave, but I only do it out of boredom every other idle Tuesday afternoon. I still have my flower --And it probably doesn't help that I actually called it "my flower". And most importantly, I don't wake up in the morning and drink coffee and read the newspaper.

Someone once told me that someone once told them that being a man somehow involved paying insurance. This has always been stuck in the back of my head. I don't have a car, but when I did, I didn't pay for the insurance. If I had, would that have made a difference to me? Don't ask me why, but I kind of think it would have.

I guess I'm immature, but not in that adulescent, getting drunk and "talking all raw about chicks" kind of way, but in more of a, look at the silly, naive negro boy. I remember telling my mom that I had to get plain tighty whiteys in the third grade because someone saw my Snoopy underoos in the bathroom and made fun of me. Looking back on that incident -- and ignoring the burning question that leaps to mind now of WHY THE FUCK WERE MY CLASSMATES STARING AT ME IN THE BATHROOM?! -- it occurs to me that this was the last time I felt like I had to do something to grow up with the other kids. I let them take Snoopy off my undies, but I haven't given in to anything since.

I'm the naive negro knucklehead who's always going to give another chance to the people who've never given him the one. Is this my gift or is this my burden? No. Forget that question, that makes it sound like this type of thing is actually important... I guess what I'm wondering is whether or not I'm irrevocably fucked up at this point. Is it at all possible that being stuck like this is a good thing? Maybe I was put on this earth so that there would always be someone who could work a Saturday evening shift because he's got nothing better to do. Maybe I'm meant to be this eternal eight-year-old with the mental acuity to entertain actual eight-year-olds.

I hope so, because no matter what happens -- like say this marathon bad-luck with the ladies streak ever ends and I have kids one day -- I think I'm always going to be the guy who shoots imaginary webs out of his wrists when he thinks no one else is looking... and sometimes when he knows people are.

"I am Flawed But I'm Cleaning Up So Well"
I've really been throwing myself into my work. They have me work as usher a lot, and my theory is that it's because I have to wear a tie and vest and deep down, my white supervisors really love the idea of a black man dressing up all nice to clean up after folk. Really, I think it's because all my coworkers think I'm a total oversweeper.

"Brilliant But Lazy"
Just so you know, I still haven't sent Marvel that writing sample.

Yeah, I know.

"I Will Always Be Spider-Man"
I don't know if you remember this, but last summer, my sister let me borrow her X-Box and it took me a week or two to beat the Spider-Man movie game, and I totally lost myself and gave up on the blog for about a month.

Well, I rented the Spider-Man 2 game on Sunday, and I've been playing it ever since. I saved the city from crazy old Otto Octavius and his ill-conceived fusion reaction experiment Monday night. There's nothing left for me to accomplish but swing around the city, stopping crimes at random and delivering the occasional pizza. I swear, I keep tying the same pixelated thugs to lampposts over and over and over again. There's nothing new for me to do... but I can't stop. I can hardly sleep at night, because in the back of my head, I'm thinking "You know, you really could be webslinging right now." It's worse than the Spider-Solitaire fiasco.

I've got a fever, and the prescription is more Spidey-fighty action!