birthdays

The festivities for my birthday started on Friday, when Shelley took me out for a fancy dinner. We gossiped and laughed and drank wine and ate a lot of tasty food. They ended last night, when D.Jack took me out for a fancy dinner and we gossiped and laughed and drank wine and ate a lot of tasty food. In between, there was cocktail drinking and present getting and family members singing to me.

This is a crazy corny tradition in my family and one that I cornily get crazy excited about. At the end of my nephew's message to me, I heard my brother: "Say bye, buddy." Followed by Deckie's wee voice: "Bye Buddy!" Then Chris left me a good early morning message, saying that she hoped I was doing all the things I liked: breakfast with good people, booze, yoga, sex. Oh, I laughed and I laughed. Hilarity and cuteness is a very good way to start a birthday.

It is also a very good way to continue a birthday, and would describe the small gathering that Shelley held for me on Saturday night, at which were many cute people and many fun gifts (such as the amazingly fun Fashion Crimes Bingo, from J.) and many delicious drinks and snacks.

You may not know that I am what they call a lightweight, or "a cheap date," with regards to my drinking stamina. You may also not know, since I did not, that that if I have a reasonably-sized bowl of noodles and several delicious snacks I can, in fact, double my alcohol consumption without feeling particularly drunk. Which would be an advantage if said food also staved off the concomitant creeping hangover, where you feel pretty fine when you wake up and fucking awful by 3 hours later.

Still and all, what a great weekend. When you manage fit in most of the things that you're known for liking, it's really can't be too bad at all.

For years, I hated my birthday. It's a sad story I don't feel like telling in its entirety, but I didn't celebrate the day for about 5 or 6 years, starting when I was 21. I'd have dinner with my family, but that's it. I didn't even tell anyone who didn't already know. After that, I started again slowly, with, I believe, a birthday dinner with Chris in 1999. Sometimes I do more than have dinner with one other person, but not always. I'm happy to be older, and I'm happy I was born, but I don't generally want a lot of hooha around that fact.

Last year, while my birthday certainly wasn't terrible, it was also not so much fun. I'd just come off of a few 10-13 hour work days in Edmonton and was bone tired. It had just hit me that things with Eric might probably be on the downswing. Shelley and Eric threw me a party, which was lovely of them, but my mom was there. And that was fine, she's a very nice person, but I spent 90% of my birthday party worrying whether she were having a good time. This lead to not a good time for me.

If I gushed in my last post, I think it's that the fun and loveliness of this year was thrown into relief by the sterum-tightening memories of last year. Because really, this year was the birthday of birthdays.

You already know all the great things that happened on Splendid Friday. While all this niceness was happening, I kept thinking, "You know, the only thing that would make this birthday better is one of my mom's peach pies. I mean, I like cake, who doesn't like cake, but really, I would like a pie for my birthday. A peach pie. Maybe I can get mom to give me one next summer and I can keep in the freezer until my birthday because really a birthday is a little less of a birthday without a nice piece of pie."

After dinner, we went back to the back house for drinks. I noticed something was baking, but didn't really pay attention. Then Shelley opened the oven door, and there it was: Rodenhizer and F. had made me a beautiful peach pie, a very emphatic M carved into the top crust.

I believe I clapped my hands and hopped in place.

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You wanna know the suckiest part of throwing an event? The two hours beforehand, when pretty much everything you can do is done. You're in limbo, only waiting, hoping that people come, then worrying that even if they do, they'll have a bad time.

Such was early Saturday evening, before our housewarming party started. Shelley had a headache, I desperately needed a nap, Steve was feeling flu-ish. But thanks to Beer and Good Company, we all rallied - until the wee hours of the morning, no less. Lots of people came, most of whom we knew, and everyone seemed to have a good time. Both Jennifer and I were amused by the number of times we heard the phrases "So THIS is the Man of Science!" and "Oh! The pergola! It was totally worth it!" and "Sooooo, is the Born Ruffian here tonight?"

It must be admitted that the evening got blurry for me. You might think that was the fault of Beer, but you would be wrong. I had so many nice conversations about so many different things with so many people I like that the next day they all kind of blended together. I blame Good Company.