On this day, many, many years ago, I was pulled from the womb of my unconscious mother with forceps. Later, according to my mother’s account, when a nurse brought me to her, she refused to take me, saying, “No, I haven’t had my baby yet.” A few friends and loved ones seem to think that this somehow explains not only my unusually misshapen head, but the fact that I suffer from anxiety, depression, and any number of other ailments that contribute toward making me a miserable human being. Personally, I don’t think the circumstances of my extraction were all that traumatic… at least relatively speaking… as, just a few hours later, a stranger with a box cutter was allowed to mutilate my genitals for the Lord.
Anyway, it’s something that I think about often, and have written about at length before, in comic form. Here, if you haven’t seen it, is a panel, which I drew about a dozen years ago, showing my extraction… My mom, as you can see, has feet like overcooked elbow macaroni.
This year, my birthday was spent at home, tending to sick family members. I’d like to be angry at them, but, as I’m the one that gave them the flu, I guess it’s only fair… And they did get me some great gifts. (Much better than the year that Linette bought me a comb for my birthday.) I got a really cool cookbook by the Southern Foodways Alliance
16 Comments
Happy birthday! I was stuck in the birth canal too and the doctor was going to use forceps. He was determined that I be a “St. Patrick’s Day” baby. I guess I was too because I swam out at about 10:39 at night. I can just picture the scene…my mom smoking, the doctor smoking, my dad in the waiting room smoking….
Happy Birthday. Today is my dad’s birthday, too. And mine was the 9th. We Aquarians are a special breed.
Happy birthday! And you share a birthday with Sarah Palin too!
Obvious by the photo that you have always leaned (hung) to the left. Have a great day!
I had a perfect hippie birth. No drugs. On a farm. Immediately snuggled with my mother. No one lopped off my genitals. And I’m still a psychological and emotional mess. I hope that brings you some comfort.
Birth is an unpleasant business, but the alternative is worse. As Bob Dylan says, “he not busy being born is busy dying.” Happy birthday.
Mental health is overrated. Well-adjusted people don’t do shit in this world. I’d take an depressive obsessive over a pack of “normal” people any day of the week.
Anyone who wants to do the math and figure out just how old Mark really is, will find a clue by following this link.
http://markmaynard.com/2012/09/the-subject-of-poverty-finally-makes-its-way-into-the-presidential-campaign/
Happy Birthday!
You had it easy. They pulled me out like I was a tree stump.
Am I the only one who looks at you and thinks “Tin Drum”?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTPZn-T3wZE
https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/529787_10151463157130923_979198401_n.jpg
I don’t know if it’s Palin’s birthday, but I’m pretty sure that February 11 is the day that Whitney Houston died.
Thayrone alluded to you on his show yesterday. Happy birthday.
Your penis is just as beautiful as I’d imagined it.
“A stranger with a box cutter was allowed to mutilate my genitals for the Lord.” Amen, Brother. That’s some Taliban kind of bullshit right there.