It's strange, isn't it? Where we draw the lines.
I turned thirty. The day before my birthday was very, very hard for a variety of reasons but my actual birthday I spent at work and was distracted and fine. The night after my birthday, I drank the bottle of Prosecco that I bought at the food show in Cleveland last November. In twelve minutes, from opening to drunk, with an assist from some cold orange juice and innumerable ham sandwiches on everything bread. It is a combination of my lack of certain key moisture-absorbing internal organs and my genetics that make me an awesome drinker. Plus when I choose to drink, I am very determined to DO THIS THING and not be a weakling about it. Because not being able to chug poison is weak, you see. Duh.
My co-worker's daughter, who is six, got me a gift bag that has Tweety on it and had pens and Twizzlers inside it because "Aarika loves Twizzlers." This child does not know me that well at all but she was very correct on this particular point. I said, "Hey, can I have a hug?" and she said, "Um, yeah" and we hugged and more of my icy heart towards children melted. She wrote inside the card "You are the best!" Chhhildren, jeez.
skogkatt sent me one of her patented "it's your birthday, here's some stuff!" care packages. Which included: a drawing she did during her sordid D&D past (see above), a book that tells me how to plan the perfect party with disgusting recipes for beige dips and even more disgusting wordplay on the invitations and, the star of the show, MusiVation presents "I Can Do It! Positive Self-Esteem Songs for Kidz! (with Michele and her animal friends)." This is a disturbing Australian (maybe?) woman who sings with her animal friends some creepy ass lyrics. Such as track 13's "I Am Perfect" with Carlos the Coqui Frog from Puerto Rico:
I am perfect
I am perfect
I am now being who I am
because I am perfect
Yes, I am perfect in every way
I love who I am
I am perfect
I am smart
I am unique
I am beautiful
I AM A PERFECT CHILD
I AM PERFECT
I love how the lyrics get all capitalized at the end because it makes me think of a bratty child screaming after he's pushed over your dining room table, "I AM PERFECT. MY MOM AND MICHELE SAY SO IN SONGS!" Highly recommended download.
Otherwise, the year was celebrated in various ways and I felt loved to various degrees. That sounds clinical. Birthdays are weird for me. My father, in his peculiar way, always tried to be nice around my birthday or do something particularly special for me but it would usually fall through because we never got along well for extended periods of time, even without the pressure to get along for a certain holiday, and also the man didn't have fantastic follow-through on his plans. I have no idea who else I know who's like this.
Fortunately, I have time to re-teach myself.
Unfortunately, that would require spending time on myself beyond the basics of dress, cleaning, eating, working and basic socializing. Which doesn't happen very much lately.
My mother had a particularly bad week. I finally had to tell her today in a clear, loud tone, "You are scaring the fuck out of me, quit sleeping all day and let's go get something to eat." This after she almost fell down because she thought she was awake enough to walk but wasn't and, indeed, scared the FUCK out of me. If I hadn't been there to draw her attention that she was trying to make her body do something it could not do because it was not quite fully conscious, she might have fallen and then aggggh, parents. One of my friends was texting me during the time my mother was giving me the silent treatment because I scolded her (for an hour and then she brushed it off and started looking more like herself) and was spending the day with her own parents in Pittsburgh. She texted, "When did both of my parents become whiny three year olds?" I nodded at my phone.
I have this tension in my shoulders. It's not the weight of the world. That's different. I've had that. It's more like the weight of the waiting. The wait for the weighty things that could and should and might be figured out by someone smarter and more rested and less drained than me.
[[Televisionally, "Breaking Bad" is quite amazing. But "Mad Men" is still better.]]
My co-worker's daughter, who is six, got me a gift bag that has Tweety on it and had pens and Twizzlers inside it because "Aarika loves Twizzlers." This child does not know me that well at all but she was very correct on this particular point. I said, "Hey, can I have a hug?" and she said, "Um, yeah" and we hugged and more of my icy heart towards children melted. She wrote inside the card "You are the best!" Chhhildren, jeez.
skogkatt sent me one of her patented "it's your birthday, here's some stuff!" care packages. Which included: a drawing she did during her sordid D&D past (see above), a book that tells me how to plan the perfect party with disgusting recipes for beige dips and even more disgusting wordplay on the invitations and, the star of the show, MusiVation presents "I Can Do It! Positive Self-Esteem Songs for Kidz! (with Michele and her animal friends)." This is a disturbing Australian (maybe?) woman who sings with her animal friends some creepy ass lyrics. Such as track 13's "I Am Perfect" with Carlos the Coqui Frog from Puerto Rico:
I am perfect
I am perfect
I am now being who I am
because I am perfect
Yes, I am perfect in every way
I love who I am
I am perfect
I am smart
I am unique
I am beautiful
I AM A PERFECT CHILD
I AM PERFECT
I love how the lyrics get all capitalized at the end because it makes me think of a bratty child screaming after he's pushed over your dining room table, "I AM PERFECT. MY MOM AND MICHELE SAY SO IN SONGS!" Highly recommended download.
Otherwise, the year was celebrated in various ways and I felt loved to various degrees. That sounds clinical. Birthdays are weird for me. My father, in his peculiar way, always tried to be nice around my birthday or do something particularly special for me but it would usually fall through because we never got along well for extended periods of time, even without the pressure to get along for a certain holiday, and also the man didn't have fantastic follow-through on his plans. I have no idea who else I know who's like this.
Fortunately, I have time to re-teach myself.
Unfortunately, that would require spending time on myself beyond the basics of dress, cleaning, eating, working and basic socializing. Which doesn't happen very much lately.
My mother had a particularly bad week. I finally had to tell her today in a clear, loud tone, "You are scaring the fuck out of me, quit sleeping all day and let's go get something to eat." This after she almost fell down because she thought she was awake enough to walk but wasn't and, indeed, scared the FUCK out of me. If I hadn't been there to draw her attention that she was trying to make her body do something it could not do because it was not quite fully conscious, she might have fallen and then aggggh, parents. One of my friends was texting me during the time my mother was giving me the silent treatment because I scolded her (for an hour and then she brushed it off and started looking more like herself) and was spending the day with her own parents in Pittsburgh. She texted, "When did both of my parents become whiny three year olds?" I nodded at my phone.
I have this tension in my shoulders. It's not the weight of the world. That's different. I've had that. It's more like the weight of the waiting. The wait for the weighty things that could and should and might be figured out by someone smarter and more rested and less drained than me.
[[Televisionally, "Breaking Bad" is quite amazing. But "Mad Men" is still better.]]