Happy birthday to Jan-Michael Vincent!

And to me! I'm 38. Wow. Pushing 40. Here is a list of people who share my birthday, some of whom are celebrities and some of whom are "celebrities." Sorry about the underlining: I copied them off a website and can't figure out how to change it.

Rembrandt van Rijn (pretty pictures)
Larry Cohen (my childhood eye doctor?)
Jan-Michael Vincent (bargain-basement, 70s Jason Statham)
Linda Ronstadt (gorgeous voice. Blue Bayou--forget about it)
Arianna Huffington (I know it's a real name, but I still don't believe it)
Jesse Ventura (Governor The Body)
Daniel Mesguich (can sell you a nice brisket?)
John Stallworth (Personally burned 10 witches at the stake?)
Terry O'Quinn (from Lost?)
Joe Satriani (baseball?)
Jennifer Saunders (Absolutely Fabulous)
Dennis Storhoi (want to say figure skater but that's Elvis Stoiko)
Forest Whitaker (what's with his eye?)
Brigitte Nielsen (nice work on Celebrity Rehab!)
Amanda Foreman (Eric Foreman's other sister?)
Irene Jacob (old-timey newspaper columnist?)
Jason Bonham (way to have a talented dad)
Eddie Griffin (Undercover Brother)
Leticia Calder (O! Pioneers? Nah, that's Willa Cather)
Rosalinda Celentano (Delicious pizza?)
Stan Kirsch ("Kirsch" means "cherry" in German)
John LeClair (The Spy Who Came in from the Cold?)
Reginald C. Hayes (My butler?)
Jason Wilcox (garden variety sports figure?)
Scott Foley (got dumped by Jennifer Garner)
Brian Austin Green (did he EVER have sex with Donna Martin?)
Evan Marriott (assuming he's one of the hotel guys)
Jill Halfpenny (character in a Dickens novel?)
Diane Heidkrueger (19th century Aristotelian philosopher?)
Juanfran (a nice Riesling?)
Marco Di Vaio (a game you play in the swimming pool?)
Lana Parrilla (Mussolini's mistress?)
Alexander Frei (all I can think is "Hapsburg")
Travis Fimmel (First pass at a name for Robert DeNiro character in Taxi Driver?)
Jonathan Cheechoo (character in a children's book who gets into all kinds of mischief?)


So there you have the illustrious people with whom I share a birthday. It's been a good, typical day so far. I CrossFitted this morning, am waiting to train, and will eat cake later. Have also been making good progress on my book proposal after a couple days of no inspiration. Thursday I'm off to Houston to celebrate with Julie and her family. Thanks to everyone for all the well-wishes! Life is good.

Thanks for all the comments on teaching. I won't try to catalog them all or to rein in the discussion. Be civil to each other, unless you are like my teammate Sean, who is a good friend but not a nice person. (I told him this, and he agreed.) In that case, everyone is on their own.

I am realizing why I don't like teaching that much: I'm not good at it, and I know I'm not good at it, so that brings out all the qualities in myself that I don't like, including insecurity, defensiveness, the tendency to rationalize and to compare myself to others. So, the only thing for that is to continue to do it. I got my wish: I taught last night, and things went really well, as near as I could tell. I felt comfortable with the techniques in the curriculum (run the pipe takedown, half-guard pass, choke from mount), and everyone seemed to pick them up really well. I cracked a few jokes but kept everyone on task, and I only had to ask for people's attention between rounds of rolling (which is perfectly reasonable).

So I'm on a good track, I think.

In other news, I'm pleased to announce a new feature of my blog: the guest author. In the two plus years I've been blogging, I never thought to invite a guest to share his/her perspective. My teammate Frank Chirino came up with this fantastic idea, and his will be the first guest post. Frank is a purple belt who drives me batshit crazy because he has sussed out my game and shuts it down effortlessly. He chews gum constantly while training; I haven't figured out yet whether that gum chewing is some kind of tell, like maybe he chews faster when he's going for a finish or something. I'll have to pay closer attention.

Frank has carte blanche to write about whatever he wants to, so it may or may not be BJJ-related. I don't know when I'll get his post, so I'll keep writing in the meantime, but I'm hoping that my introducing him now will get him going.

Okay, off to have some cake! What kind to have?? Probably several kinds.