Call me a clown...

So I got to make a birthday wish (is 25 really too old for this? It seems to always work for me, I hate to give it up. But it has to be a certain way, has to be on the actual birthday day and with the right number of candles, and they have to be lit, which is getting dangerous. And you can't tell anybody what you wished for, even though I wouldn't even if it weren't a rule. I'd be too embarrassed.) I've always considered it my one chance each year to really have Fate hear me, like a more potent prayer. Lately my prayers have grown sort of conversational anyhow, less formal and more "let's make a bargain, You and I. If You'll just give me that something I've been asking for, even if You think it's a bad idea, I promise I'll prove to You that You were wrong." I don't know if this goes over well On High, but I haven't been struck down yet. On the contrary, it seems to be working. Maybe I'm superstitious, or silly, but I still wish on shooting stars ("you're supposed to say 'money, money, money' before it disappears," says Mom, but it doesn't seem to work for her, so why should I waste a perfectly good shooting star?), in fairy rings, which has been lucrative this summer seeing as it's been so wet and the mushrooms are going berserk, along with other kinds of fungus ("what is that girl doing on my lawn?" somebody probably wonders), and on my necklace when the clasp turns around. My favorite necklace has a real honest-to-goodness four-leaf clover in it; maybe that's extra lucky. Or maybe those are only lucky for the person who finds them, which I didn't. Who knows? I don't like to think you can buy luck, that'd be too easy. But you sure can beg for it.