birthday greetings are much more sincere when you're there to accept them

its my brother's birthday today. i gave him the new The Academy Is... cd. and he gave me some of his old shirts. we're going out to buy him some new film for his camera. this is gonna be FUN. i cant wait. he got a new tripod that he's just dying to test out. excitement is here. a house full of festivities, yet i'm sitting in a room full of gloom. why is it that something seemingly so great, when closely inspected seems to fall short of expectations?