10

How I spent my birthday, by Michael R. Barrick.

I guiltlessly woke up at the crack of noon with a fierce determination to coast through the day with a minimum of anxiety and the voices of decades of guilt-trips about what I "should" be doing on mute. Grocery shopping had been done the day before. Bills were already paid. One of the nice things about being born on the 31st is that my birthday is also a payday so I was unconcerned about spending the cash in my wallet frivolously.