Birth Days...Earth Days...Mirth Days...

You don't need to know me that well to know that I am an incredibly sensitive person. I take everything personally. Being that I'm a person, I know of no other way to take things. If you know how to take things like a salamander, or a canary, please let me know. I'm always open to new coping mechanisms.

So it comes to pass that, being so highly sensitized, my life is inevitably filled with a lot of disappointments and tough breaks. As much as I try to accept these as part and parcel of the Sensitive Life, most of the time I fail gloriously and just try to digest them without guaranteeing myself a spot in a rubber room.

This means I come to rely quite heavily on the people in my life. I'm a bit of a spiritualist, and more than a bit of a metaphor hag, so I firmly people that people come into our lives at certain times for certain reasons. I've got to believe there's some meaning floating around down here, and we have to be open (read: sensitive) to it in order to feel and appreciate it.

And so, it's no wonder that two very special people in my life celebrated milestones today. Being that these dear people mean so much to me, I savored the joys of the day in a way I haven't in quite some time. For the first time in a long while, I was pulled from my melancholic haze and entered a place of peace and celebration.

First, my dearest friend in the universe, Kat. Kat and I went to acting school together, she now lives in San Francisco, and is a happily-married mother of two. In typical Kat fashion, she left the following posting on my MySpace page: "I'm friggin' prego AGAIN!"

Now she and I haven't discussed this yet, so I won't pretend to know all she's feeling about the subject, so I just speak for myself here when I say, "Yipppeeeeeee! Weeeeeeeee! Hurrrrrayyyyyyy!". You see, Kat is an awesome mom. And when I see backwards rednecks breeding like rabbits and naming their kids awful things like Tiffani and Heathyr, it thrills me when I know a child is going to be brought into a safe, loving, liberal, creative, artistic, happy family like Kat's. This world would be a much better place if all family's were like hers. Even just for the purely-selfish reason that living a Sensitive Life would be not only a good thing, but a normal thing.

Enter Metaphor Hag. I also think it's no coincidence that Kat shared this news with me on Earth Day. If ever there was a quintessential Earth Mother, it is Kat. When I first knew her, she was a girl adorned with dyed-black hair, spiked jewelry, and artificial fangs. When I first saw her pregnant (with her second child) ten-plus years later, she was a woman bedecked in au naturel hair to the waist, fabulous hemp necklaces and large stone bracelets, and a long flowing gypsy dress that would've made Stevie Nicks proud. The change from partying goth girl to Mother of the Revolution was also internal; she had clearly transformed some very core beliefs about herself and her world into much more positive, more enlightened, and more generous convictions. But the essence, the unmistakable and unwavering courage and crazy free love, were untouched, probably even strengthened.

I thought, after the birth of her first child, that things between she and I were forever changed. After all, I hadn't known, and will never know, what it's like to be a parent. I often feel a little alienated from my friends who have children, simply because I've lost a key ability I pride myself on: the ability to understand and identify. I was also worried that she wasn't going to be the same person that she was pre-prego. As I drove to visit her in San Fran, I worried the whole way that I wouldn't know her anymore. I mean, would she be the same girl with whom I shared a bong and played nudie Twister?

Well, I needn't have worried.

I wasn't in her home five minutes, when, both of us seated on the couch, I turned to her. She had pulled off her muumuu and was stark naked, lying back and gyrating her hips into the sofa so that her massive new-mother breasts swung in a continuous circular orbit just above the rest of her body. Eyes fixed on her boobs, she simply said, "Hypnotic, aren't they?"

Nope, she was the same girl.

To her I say Congratulations. It does this bitter, aging, balding queen good to have those fabulous, hypnotic breasts in my life.

Speaking of fabulous breasts (sorry, Molly, I needed a good segue here), the other happy event of the day that lifted me from the doldrums was my colleague Molly's birthday. Let me tell you about Molly. She is one of those people who can single-handedly lift me out of my perpetual malaise just by her mere presence. She is filled with such light, such talent, such humor and intelligence, I am transported whenever I am around her. It's rare to find people like that, and whenever I do, I treasure them wholly.

Though we work together, Molly has a much different, and much tougher, job than I have. And I am consistently impressed with the grace and wit with which she handles her rather impossible position. Simply exchanging a few words with Molly is enough to effectively change the shade of my entire day. In my heart, everyday is reason to celebrate Molly, so on the one day of the year that commemorates that celebration, I am extra-giddy.

To these two women, who are such powerful forces in my life, I am eternally grateful.