My Name is Greg and Today’s My Birthday

[lotuseater]

Twenty-one feels an awful lot like twenty. But one month before my birthday, I was registering for classes and going on a field trip to Sports Illustrated. It was one of the most boring places I have ever been to, but my journalism professor married the editor-in-chief and my school couldn’t afford to send us anywhere else. It threw me off kilter to see so many straight men in one area. My Mom and Grace came in that weekend to visit, and Abby flew up from Miami to meet us. It stressed me out a little bit to have them all here, but we had a nice time together. I assured them that there were plenty of places to have a late dinner in Park Slope, but wasn’t so sure when we were wandering the dark streets and everything was closed. Except some little diner where the waiter was angry and a little mouse darted across the floor every few minutes. My Mom screamed at the top of her lungs every time she saw it, then went back to eating her sandwich. The next day, I took them for soul food because my Mom wouldn’t shut up about it. Abby’s flight wasn’t until the middle of the night, so after my Mom and sister left, we got some sushi and watched “The Amazing Race”. When the new week started, I went with Zach to see “Babel” and then met Brandon to see Joanna Newsom at Webster Hall. Someone yelled “Show us your tits!” at the opening act girl, and I thought that was so gay to yell that at a Joanna Newsom show. Joanna was really sweet and played all my favorite songs wonderfully, but I was so sore from standing that long. During the weekend, Alex and I ate bad Chinese food and saw “Borat”. A guy came into the restaurant and goes, “One cup of delicious wonton soup, please!” Then looked around the room and smiled. We had to meet Miss Yamin and the Scranton High Art Club at Pratt for Portfolio Day. She threw us in a van with all these chaperone mothers from Scranton and we drove over the bridge into Manhattan. The moms were fucking funny and we did our best to scare them with the possibility of their kids going to college in the city. They dropped us off on Houston, where I was cruised by the kid who played Tom Cruise’s son in “War of the Worlds,” then we got cappuccinos and dessert in Little Italy. I love Miss Yamin. After Alex got a fake ID from Sean Dana for her friend’s birthday party, I went to see one of the “8 Films to Die For”. It was about this woman who goes to Russia to find her birth parents and inherit this scary house. I tried to get tickets for SNL because Ludacris was hosting, but it was far too late, so I walked down to Chelsea to meet Lorena and Nelson. We ate beignets across the street and got ice cream next door. I woke up really early the next day for a yoga session in Harlem, then had to do a lot of homework. That week I got to go home for Thanksgiving, and the house was really messy and everyone was stressed. Thanksgiving was sort of depressing anyway. My grandmother’s turkey was fantastic and I feel like I ate four pieces of pie a day all week. I saw “Bobby” with Becky and Omer, and it was the most boring movie I have ever seen in my entire life. The Alexgiving party was nice, though it took us a while to get up to the cabin. Kelly’s car got stuck in the mud, Denzel puked nori seaweed, and I smoked pot with Ashley Bogaski. It was sad to leave though. I got back to NY and found out my checking account was in the negative. Apparently the check I wrote for my MTA fine bounced. The Marketing Director at my internship bought me a yoga mat. Then I had to sit on a Q&A panel for the internship program, where I talked about stealing books for your friends and learning not to date people in your office. That weekend, I had to help Lorena carry her heavy view-camera all over our neighborhood. It was so cold and Lorena is such a sloth. A pigeon pooped on me! Oh New York. When I was really bummed out one night, walking home from the subway, a little tiny boy on a bicycle steadied his steering so he could wave at me as he passed. It was just so nice, and my day seemed better after that. Corey Janus was in town visiting that weekend, so on Saturday I made my way down to the Marriot at the WTC site, where she was staying with Becca. We drank a lot of wine and smoked in the room before going out to meet Bowen at a Cooper Union bar. He took us to an opening at the Museum of Comic Books…or something like that. At another bar on Second, Corey and I got kicked out. We were starving, so we went next door and I had the best Indian food I have ever had in my entire life. That whole meal seems so ethereal when I think of it now. And it was so cheap! We met up with Kyle in Union Square to walk westward and find Becca, since she was turning twenty-one at midnight. 14th & 10th is such a weird area on a Saturday night. I immediately felt unsuccessful in life and that there wasn’t enough black in my wardrobe. On the L, I hopped off at Union Square with Kyle after giving quick hugs. I walked into my apartment around three, though Lorena reminded me that I said I’d be home by nine. And my birthday, how could I forget! I mainly spent the whole time obsessing over a dilemma with UPS. I had ordered a pair of shoes, but was never home when they tried to deliver my package. I called a million numbers and stopped UPS trucks all over Prospect Heights. When I was walking home Tuesday night, I walked up to a UPS guy in his truck and asked if he delivered to Saint Marks Avenue as he shook his head-“You already asked me that.” I couldn’t have been more ashamed if I had said “You know, all black men look the same to me” or used the N-word before shuffling away from him. UPS told me I had to pick that shit up at the warehouse in East New York. Alex agreed to drive me, though it had just closed when we finally found the place. She drove me back to Pratt, where I met her friend Francisco and got to borrow his bike. The next day, Wednesday the 6th, was my birthday. I spent it by calling in sick to work and watching the Iraq Study Group interrupt “The View”. Then I braved the streets of Brooklyn with Francisco’s bicycle. It was very scary and ultimately invigorating. I had the directional sense of a migrating albatross, but when I got to the warehouse I was told my package had never been taken off the truck and it was on its way for delivery. I couldn’t summon the energy to get back on the bike, but I eventually did. I felt like God was trying to tell me I should not have these shoes, like there was a tiny Mexican scorpion living inside one of them just waiting for me to slip in my naked foot. I biked back to the apartment, to Ithaka, snot frozen to my face and a cold sweat permeating my jacket. At least I survived (how awful it would be to die on your 21st birthday). I took a bath, thought I saw the face of Jesus in the fogged-up bathroom mirror, and waited around for the UPS man who never came. Then I had to meet my parents in Times Square, because they took the bus in to see me on my birthday. My mother had warned the night before that she was bringing a girl from work-Becky, who “is 24, and a single mom, and she’s never been to New York or seen a Broadway show!” The subways were fucked up, but I met the trio at “Les Miserables” just in time. We had box seats, like Abraham Lincoln, and the performance was great. We took Becky to Rockefeller Center to see the Christmas tree (she’s so nice), and then walked back to find a place to eat. Times Square fucking sucks. We ate near a fireplace in Rosie O’Grady’s. I opened a few presents from people at home: a homemade scarf from Mem, a nativity set from Grandma. It was sad to see them get back on the bus, because it all felt so rushed. I rode the Q back to my apartment, feeling like I wanted to shout “Today’s my birthday!!!” to everyone on the train. On my birthday, I always think about how every day is probably someone’s birthday that you pass on the street and you would never know. The card from my sister made me want to cry, but I cracked up when reading the card from my parents. My mother writes, “The love and pride I feel for you can only be described as ‘intense’”! I just thought that was such a funny thing to write. Lorena and I are having our first party in the apartment tomorrow, so I spent some time getting alcohol after we went to Big Enchilada. When I was waiting for Lorena at Parsons, this one international student told a guy who works there that he looks like the short gay guy from “Grey’s Anatomy”. That was almost as awkward as the time I saw this homeless guy try to pet an old man’s dog, and when the dog tried to jump onto him, the old man yelled and the other guy thought he was yelling at him for trying to pet it. When the old man tried to explain, the other guy was just like “Forget it!” It was just such a terrible moment for everyone on the whole sidewalk that day. I had to go to the offices of Vice Magazine in Williamsburg (where else?) today because I am doing a presentation for class about why I hate it so much. I hated even being there, asking for old issues and pretending I don’t despise the work they do. But once all my final papers are handed in, I can head home and see my dog and have Christmastime. I have not been saying the Christmas prayer, but my mother did send an Advent calendar in the mail. I get sentimental reading this fantastic book I took from work-Adam Rapp’s “The Year of Endless Sorrows.” I was blown away when I read this one part Rapp writes after finding out the STD he thought he got from this girl was actually a reaction to her cat’s fur: “I simply returned to the general insignificance of my life the way one returns to the favorite roller-skating rink of his or her hometown: as if very little has happened and no time has passed.” (!)

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I'm just so in love with the Christmas lights in Prospect Park--