we all want to be sixteen (even though we're twenty-three)
So, you know Harry Potter, right? That bit where Ron gets up early and eats some chocolates, that he thinks are meant for him, and actually they aren't meant for him, they're meant for Harry, sort of, they're from Romilda Vane, who is in love with Harry, so they're laced with love potion, so now Ron is in love with Romilda, and Harry has to punch him, and they take him to Slughorn, who gives him the antidote, and a drink of mead, only the mead is meant for Dumbledore, sort of, and it's poisoned, and he, Ron that is, falls to the floor frothing at the mouth until Harry shoves a bezoar down his throat, and the first thing Fred says when he comes round is, "So, all in all, not one of Ron's better birthdays?"
...no, my birthday wasn't that bad.
No, actually, it wasn't bad at all. jacinthsong left me a pile of presents over the weekend, and I opened them at midnight, because I am grown-up, and now I own my very own Tribble (it makes angry noises! and happy noises! but mostly angry noises) and the novelisation of Trials and Tribble-ations, which is adorable and worth the price of admission just for the foreword, by David Gerrold, the writer of "The Trouble With Tribbles", recounting how much fun he had playing a silver-haired redshirt on the Deep Space Nine set. (Oh, how much do I love Deep Space Nine? Thiiiis much.) And shimgray says he has three installments of presents for me (and one of them is not a book!), but for last night, he gave me a beautifully obscure book about reported ghosts on the Underground.
(He did note, though, that someone being given birthday presents of Star Trek toys and books on the history of underground transit systems usually belongs to a different demographic from me. I said, yes, but, Laura also gave me a ridiculously adorable Scarlet & Crimson eyeshadow kit.
"Yes, well," he said, "in that regard you actually are a unique and special snowflake.")
And pinkfinity gave me a shot of vodka with lime for my profile (entirely birthday inappropriate, and just what I wanted - thank you very much, dear!), and lots of my friends sent me sweet little notes and messages, my class at school gave me a truly horrific and touching rendition of Happy Birthday with untuned honky-tonk-piano accompaniment, and I hurried home at five to pick up a parcel I thought was an Amazon order, but turned out to be a present from tau_sigma - holographically wrapped Star Trek playing cards! (Her comment: now you can place Kirk and Spock in all kinds of positions! YES. YES, I CAN. Thank you so much, honey.)
So although the day was quite hard, I am loved and valued, yes I am, and besides, the day is getting funnier in retrospect. The forecast was for heavy snow, which sort of transpired and sort of didn't - it snowed, somewhere, high in the atmosphere where the snow was powdery and the air as clear as a bell, and by the time it reached the ground it was wet, heavy, stinging soft ice. I was dressed for advocacy, and because it's my birthday had decided on my most favourite red lipstick, and of course by the time I arrived I looked like a slush-soaked rat.
(And then, entirely failed to effectively prosecute someone by neglecting to mention at any point the fact that the defendant is a VERY BAD MAN.
Okay, I say fail. I actually managed it on the grounds that the defence was even worse than I was.)
And then, due to a series of ridiculous events I ran down to the careers service over lunch and arrived eight minutes late, which isn't generally the end of the world, but it was a fifteen-minute appointment. Sigh. It was helpful, though - to deal with applications to American universities, Oxford have done the obvious thing and got in an actual American, who is just a very reassuring person when it comes to asking things like "oh god if I write that will I sound like a wanker" - and she sent me off today saying, "Go away! Next time I see you, I want it to be because you've got in. Let me know when you do."
...as though it were a given. Which is probably misguided, but sweet. I have now applied to Cornell. One more to go.
And then I sat patiently through two hours of accounts, which I am terrible at, and came home. And here I am. I am trying very hard to remember I am not sad because it-is-my-birthday-and-no-one-loves-me, I am sad because I was sad yesterday and I was sad the day before and I live in about the worst climate in the world for feeling-of-sad, and also my mother called me and that usually does make me feel sad whether or not it's my birthday.
Okay, something happy to finish with. On Saturday, last Saturday, that is, jacinthsong was visiting, and she deemed it administratively my birthday so we went to lunch at Red Star, and foreverdirt and vampire_kitten gave me flowers, and sebastienne showed me her Bra of Rassilon (it's like her Tam O'Shanter of Rassilon, but better), and dr_biscuit told me again exactly why John Howard resembles a penis in cross-section, because it makes me laugh. And Shim and I went to have dinner with luminometrice and a whole bunch of other people, and we ate a lot of food, thrashed everyone at Articulate and sat up and played paper games until two in the morning. (Shim wanted to know why I'm good at Articulate; a little thought, and then I remembered what I plan to do for a living.)
(A good paper game: my favourite version of consequences, which involves writing a short scenario/story (e.g. "two old ladies are on a walk when they meet an alligator"), the next person writes down what they think it means, and gives it to the next person to draw, etc. It helps if you have no artistic talent whatsoever; somehow Shim's drawing of two stick figures escaping from a lion became, via liturgical lions and an oversized caterpillar, in my words, "confused people at Tiananmen Square".)
And, besides. What do I want for my birthday that money can buy (i.e., not law school admission, world peace, for Massachusetts not to have just elected a Republican senator and the Incredible Fornicatores next door to stop having sex)? A birthday cake, and maaaaybe another season of Deep Space Nine, and oh, a pretty ruffly cardigan from Anthropologie. That's not a lot, as wishlists go. Life's okay, isn't it.
...no, my birthday wasn't that bad.
No, actually, it wasn't bad at all. jacinthsong left me a pile of presents over the weekend, and I opened them at midnight, because I am grown-up, and now I own my very own Tribble (it makes angry noises! and happy noises! but mostly angry noises) and the novelisation of Trials and Tribble-ations, which is adorable and worth the price of admission just for the foreword, by David Gerrold, the writer of "The Trouble With Tribbles", recounting how much fun he had playing a silver-haired redshirt on the Deep Space Nine set. (Oh, how much do I love Deep Space Nine? Thiiiis much.) And shimgray says he has three installments of presents for me (and one of them is not a book!), but for last night, he gave me a beautifully obscure book about reported ghosts on the Underground.
(He did note, though, that someone being given birthday presents of Star Trek toys and books on the history of underground transit systems usually belongs to a different demographic from me. I said, yes, but, Laura also gave me a ridiculously adorable Scarlet & Crimson eyeshadow kit.
"Yes, well," he said, "in that regard you actually are a unique and special snowflake.")
And pinkfinity gave me a shot of vodka with lime for my profile (entirely birthday inappropriate, and just what I wanted - thank you very much, dear!), and lots of my friends sent me sweet little notes and messages, my class at school gave me a truly horrific and touching rendition of Happy Birthday with untuned honky-tonk-piano accompaniment, and I hurried home at five to pick up a parcel I thought was an Amazon order, but turned out to be a present from tau_sigma - holographically wrapped Star Trek playing cards! (Her comment: now you can place Kirk and Spock in all kinds of positions! YES. YES, I CAN. Thank you so much, honey.)
So although the day was quite hard, I am loved and valued, yes I am, and besides, the day is getting funnier in retrospect. The forecast was for heavy snow, which sort of transpired and sort of didn't - it snowed, somewhere, high in the atmosphere where the snow was powdery and the air as clear as a bell, and by the time it reached the ground it was wet, heavy, stinging soft ice. I was dressed for advocacy, and because it's my birthday had decided on my most favourite red lipstick, and of course by the time I arrived I looked like a slush-soaked rat.
(And then, entirely failed to effectively prosecute someone by neglecting to mention at any point the fact that the defendant is a VERY BAD MAN.
Okay, I say fail. I actually managed it on the grounds that the defence was even worse than I was.)
And then, due to a series of ridiculous events I ran down to the careers service over lunch and arrived eight minutes late, which isn't generally the end of the world, but it was a fifteen-minute appointment. Sigh. It was helpful, though - to deal with applications to American universities, Oxford have done the obvious thing and got in an actual American, who is just a very reassuring person when it comes to asking things like "oh god if I write that will I sound like a wanker" - and she sent me off today saying, "Go away! Next time I see you, I want it to be because you've got in. Let me know when you do."
...as though it were a given. Which is probably misguided, but sweet. I have now applied to Cornell. One more to go.
And then I sat patiently through two hours of accounts, which I am terrible at, and came home. And here I am. I am trying very hard to remember I am not sad because it-is-my-birthday-and-no-one-loves-me, I am sad because I was sad yesterday and I was sad the day before and I live in about the worst climate in the world for feeling-of-sad, and also my mother called me and that usually does make me feel sad whether or not it's my birthday.
Okay, something happy to finish with. On Saturday, last Saturday, that is, jacinthsong was visiting, and she deemed it administratively my birthday so we went to lunch at Red Star, and foreverdirt and vampire_kitten gave me flowers, and sebastienne showed me her Bra of Rassilon (it's like her Tam O'Shanter of Rassilon, but better), and dr_biscuit told me again exactly why John Howard resembles a penis in cross-section, because it makes me laugh. And Shim and I went to have dinner with luminometrice and a whole bunch of other people, and we ate a lot of food, thrashed everyone at Articulate and sat up and played paper games until two in the morning. (Shim wanted to know why I'm good at Articulate; a little thought, and then I remembered what I plan to do for a living.)
(A good paper game: my favourite version of consequences, which involves writing a short scenario/story (e.g. "two old ladies are on a walk when they meet an alligator"), the next person writes down what they think it means, and gives it to the next person to draw, etc. It helps if you have no artistic talent whatsoever; somehow Shim's drawing of two stick figures escaping from a lion became, via liturgical lions and an oversized caterpillar, in my words, "confused people at Tiananmen Square".)
And, besides. What do I want for my birthday that money can buy (i.e., not law school admission, world peace, for Massachusetts not to have just elected a Republican senator and the Incredible Fornicatores next door to stop having sex)? A birthday cake, and maaaaybe another season of Deep Space Nine, and oh, a pretty ruffly cardigan from Anthropologie. That's not a lot, as wishlists go. Life's okay, isn't it.