Whoo-eee, it's my 34th boithday.

And after a long day of getting the kids at the school where I teach art to essentially paint scenery for their Hanukkah pageant without killing each other or dousing each other with paint (same difference, the way some of these kids carry on), I'm exhausted.

Reminds me of my birthday eleven years ago...just a little...

As an assistant studio tech, I had to be in the UrbanGlass public access glass studio in Brooklyn at the crack of dawn to warmup the blast furnaces and get it all going for those folks who had rented time for that day. I get to the building, a former Brooklyn Academy of Music edifice that housed the studio on its third floor, only to find that the elevator for the place is broken. The only stairwell I can see is closed in by an alarmed door. Whoops...

I got out of the building, found a nearby pay phone, and called the acting head studio manager. His wife hauled him out of bed, I told him what the deal was, asked him if there was another way to get upstairs without tripping any alarms, and he let out a haaaard sigh and said:

"I don't know what else to tell you. You're gonna have to break in."

Oh, joy,

"Ooooooh-kay. Thanks, Kevin," I said.

I hung up the phone, walked back to the building, and found one of the studio office interns in the hallway. I was sooo relieved I didn't have to go through this whole thing alone. She located a crowbar from a construction crew working on the second floor, pried the door open, and we both ran like hell up the steps to shut off the alarms that were ringing in our ears.

I called the police once I disarmed the system, told them what had happened, and they said,

"What alarm?"

Some days are just like that. Even birthdays.

So ho-hum. I entered the world today. And after that, someone should have told me at an impressionable young age that anything goes...