I love birthdays. It’s not the whole “Oh let’s celebrate me” aspect. I mean, fine, I joke with my mom and sister that their excitement over my birth should flow over into weeks of celebration because a single day couldn’t possibly contain it. But a holiday is a holiday.
My freshman roommate had a September birthday. On her second-week-at-college-before-anybody-actually-knows-anybody birthday, I went around our tiny dorm-house taping up streamers and stupid glittered out posters (yes, I was mostly excited about glitter and art projects) and bought a Winnie The Pooh cake. I may not be good at feelings, but I am good at elaborate gestures. And I’m good at celebrating.
Senior year, I skipped out on my last final because it was Pass/Fail and I knew I was failing thanks to the veritable shit storm of my life that fall (no seriously, soap opera writers wish they knew the story of that fall), and it was two weeks after my otherwise last final (you know, for those classes I was attending/passing). I decided it wasn’t fucking worth it, so I got in my car and drove my exhausted fever-ridden ass from DC to LA just in time to give my best friend a surprise hug and a cup of coffee on the morning of her 21st birthday before I passed out in her bed and stayed asleep forever and ever and ever until it was time to go get drunk.
Birthdays are a great time to do absurd random bullshit and to get other people to join you in this absurd random bullshit. TAKE A WEEKEND OFF BECAUSE I SAID SO might get you some takers, but a lot of excuses. TAKE A WEEKEND OFF BECAUSE IT IS SO-AND-SO’S BIRTHDAY will certainly get a few people on board.
As a general rule, I support the conventions that we have created that give people an excuse to celebrate and be ridiculous. Like Halloween, St. Patrick’s Day, Arbor Day, and College.
One of my aunts is an only child. Brilliantly, she decided that the entire month of November should be hers to celebrate. Why only claim a day when you’re the only child? I am the middle of five kids, but as none of my siblings have birthdays in April, I think this is a policy worth adopting.
I’ve had some awesome birthdays. My parents went all out when I was a kid, and I have had friends do amazing things over the years. For my 20th, my study abroad friends gave me one of the best birthday presents in the history of ever. They went into town and had a sign commissioned and also purchased a bottle of the most amazing vodka ever by which I mean it fucking tastes like death because it is dirt cheap but it comes in a hilarious package made all the more awesome by the fact that it tastes like death.
On my 21st birthday my (internet!) friend sent me the most heartfelt care-package-birthday box ever, containing a mixed CD, a bag of only pink Starbursts (which had to have come from at least 4 or 5 regular bags, separated by her) and glow stick bracelets so that my friends could find me on our bar crawl. For my 18th birthday Lion and I stopped in Amarillo at a specific Burger King that my four year old self had stopped at with my dad between Chicago and LA and decided that I wanted to have my birthday there. (Unfortunately my parents did not think this play place was worth a trip to Texas. Rude.)
This year’s adventures are off to a good start. Lion went to a masquerade ball this weekend, but that’s not really something this town knows how to do and we don’t exactly have a plethora of costume stores at our disposal. We decided to make our own masks. And just walking around Hobby Lobby and picking out GLITTER AND RHINESTONES AND FEATHERS made me know that I had to make one too. I HAD TO.
As we were shopping and working our way methodically through Hobby Lobby and devising the perfect attack plan for the perfect selection of gaudy, excessive arts-and-crafts supplies, we had the following conversation:
Lion: so what else do we need?
Me: I think we just need to grab rhinestones and then we’re good to go.
Lion: I think that’s a good approach to life.
And so do I. And because it’s my birthdaymonth I am going coast-to-coast and begging anyone/everyone to drop what they’re doing and come to the Glitter, Feathers, and Rhinestones Train Wreck Tour stop nearest you so that you can participate in the action. Or at least enjoy the show.
I’ll be in New York next weekend, and Los Angles for the week following Coachella / preceding Easter. Hunt me down. I shouldn’t be too hard to find.
(if you’re going to be at Coachella we absolutely need to meet up, even if you are just a random blogger/blog reader who has stumbled here without knowing why storyofmylife)
Birthdays are also a good time for cake. Lots and lots of cake.
