I’m a little kid about birthdays — I enjoy making a fuss about other people’s birthdays and I love celebrating mine.
Yes, even as a suit-wearing executive with an MBA, I have been known to take a box of cupcakes to work on my birthday, just like you might have in elementary school.
As part of that, we don’t just celebrate my birthday for one day. How could that possibly be enough? No, it’s a week-long celebration leading up to my birthday, and we call it the High Colleedays. (This is followed by the week-long celebration of John’s birthday, known as Johnukkah)
I turn 40 on Wednesday, March 16, so today kicks off the High Colleedays — and probably no one is more surprised than me that it will likely be a low-key affair.
Why?

• I’ll be in Austin for South by Southwest Interactive and John’s not coming with, so I can’t extract my usual daily dose of having him dote on me with whatever meal or cocktail I desire
• Because of SXSW travel plans, we already invited friends to join us to see Dr. John for a Mardi Gras show, so the public birthday stuff is kind of over
• While I started out with plans to throw a giant bash for my 40th, there’s so much interesting transformation going on in my life right now that it feels like life itself is a celebration

Now don’t get me wrong. If you’d like to sing to me on March 16, I’ll totally take it. But I think the real festivities will come when we leave for New Orleans in a few weeks.
And John gets to conclude Johnukkah in NOLA.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vebxcva87Zo]
P.S. If you’ve landed on this post because you were searching for Preservation Hall at SXSW, be sure to check out Danny Clinch’s new documentary on March 17: Live at Preservation Hall: Louisiana Fairytale and the band plays that night at the Moody Theater.