The key is to keep it simple-ish.

As some of you have suspected, tomorrow is my birthday.

Charlie Parker is serenading my afternoon, and my son has been working for the last hour on my present, which I am very excited about because he has been making some very cool things lately, and sometimes you can sell cool things for a bunch of money on eBay or Etsy. Fingers crossed.

My little brother Joshua, who is two days older than me, although five years younger, had his day-before-birthday two days ago (his birthday was the next day), and he called me to let me know he was calling everyone in the family the day before so they could wish him a happy one and get it out of the way 24 hours early,

so when I called him one day later (this was two days ago; the day after I first spoke to him) then I deliberately avoided wishing him a happy one, because I had already spoken to him the day previous (the day after his wife Sasha's birthday, who is also not incoincidentally my sister-in-law, and we spoke of the Pope and his wardrobe, which reminded me not in the least of my Uncle James because they wear different types of hats, and I actually did wish him a happy birthday on the phone, as his was five days before mine (which is tomorrow).

The easy way for me to remember my wife Becca's birthday is that it is just under a quarter-month before mine, which I also generously share with my cousin, so if mine arrives and I neglected to wish her a happy one, then I know I can be 358 days early for the next one, but I usually remember because of this system I've developed.

The tricky portion is that my cousin-in-law Viktoria's birthday is six days before mine, (and seven before my childhood friend Shaun's), but also exactly one month after a dear Facebook friend of mine whose name and how I know them I can't remember, so the combination of familio-social variables could get complicated, except that the easy way to keep things straight is to know that my niece's birthday will be exactly five days after the eve of my brother's birthday, and I can keep his wife's straight by remembering that she shares a birthday eve with our uncle (which is his actual birthday, not eve); which is exactly (minus one day) a week before my wife's uncle's second daughter's son,

and if I reverse engineer that one than it helps me keep track of another friend whose middle name is the same as my first. I wish there was a simple app for important dates. Also, our anniversary is a factor, but it's on September 15 which is super easy to remember because it's exactly four months after my dad, Lee, was born.

Christmas is in three months.

Happy day, all.

Joseph.