Tomorrow is the 29^th birthday of the boyfriend who took me on my very first car date, 11+ years ago. He broke up with me a month into his freshman year of college, over a dessert I didn’t want but he insisted I order at a Chili’s that I drive by at least once a week, the site of which still makes my inner 16 year-old self mutter obscenities, at which my 27 year-old self rolls her eyes. The only reason I remember is because at 16 I memorized every detail of the boys I “loved” – shoe sizes, cologne, what they called their grandmother, the TV shows on in the background of our hours-long, mostly silent phone calls – but not my mother’s birthday…which is January 18^th, one month after that First Date Boy. So now I can’t think of my mom’s birth date without also thinking of Brian’s. It is funny and also kind of sad.