The 31st Anniversary of my 21st Birthday
The birthday proper is Flag Day, June 14th, but I like to get started early. The Saturday before the day proper, I have my birthday party, wherein I open the doors from noon to midnight and play The Beatles Anthology DVD set to give me something to watch between guests, and to give the guests something to talk about in the conversational lulls. The guest count was small (one of the invitees had to call out because she'd come down with Covid) but the conversation was lively and I had a fine time.
A month or so before the party, I picked up a copy of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo in a little free library. I read it, and decided to actually try the KonMari method for myself. Given how relentlessly sentimental I am, I didn't think I'd get rid of much, but I ended up giving up four lawn-and-leaf bags full of clothes and eleven or twelve paper grocery bags of books. I found things I forgot I owned. I found things I didn't even remember owning. (What the hell was I doing with a Don DeLillo book? I didn't even like White Noise that much when I had to read it for a class.)
I purged every single article of zebra clothing out of my closet. I didn't need them anymore. I wore zebra as a flag to indicate that I was a Warren Cuccurullo fan during my time chasing Duran Duran around the country. Warren hasn't been part of Duran Duran for over two decades, so there really isn't anywhere to wear the zebra stuff, except maybe DragonCon or something (which I did do at some point). There was not a lick of regret when I passed it on to Goodwill.
It took me a couple of days to get through all the clothes. Books took me nearly a week. The main reason for that was that I had layers of detritus piled in the spaces in front of the books, and I had to sort all that out, too. I had enough candles to fill out the space underneath the bench I use as a coffee table. Lots of candles. I spent time rewicking several of the burnt-down candles in glass containers, a convoluted process involving boiling water in my old ramen pot (no longer suitable for cooking), a metal container with a spout that I picked up in a thrift shop, a spool of wick material, a bag of metal weights for the wicks, and lots of wax from dead candles and tealights. I was able to bring a number of candles back from the dead and now I might actually start using them again.
The Marie Kondo book says nothing about CDs or DVDs, so I just did them in the standard way--dump 'em all on the floor (well, stack them) and sort out what to keep and what to ditch. I didn't have a lot to get rid of, but I discovered more things I'd forgotten I'd owned, including two copies of the soundtrack for The Crow. (Did I forget that I owned it and accidentally bought an extra copy? Did my CD collection cross-pollinate with Britpoptarts'? I'm not sure.) I now have a little more space for CDs and they're all back in alphabetical order! The DVD collection now has a little more cohesion to it as well. Now I have room to BUY MORE STUFF.
The next section in the Marie Kondo book is about papers. That one's going to be a doozy.
On my 50th birthday, I made plans to see Cirque du Soliel LOVE, the permanent Las Vegas installation that uses the music of The Beatles. I turned 50 in 2020. So much for that idea. I was ready to try again in 2021, but the show was still closed in June, so I put it off another year. This year, the show is open, flights are flying and I've booked the trip.
I will be going to the show exactly on my birthday. I'm gonna have a good birthday.
Today I took pleasure in Coca-Cola with lemon. (No, not a new flavor, just Coca-Cola with some lemon juice tossed in.)
Today I learned how much is on the gift card that someone was kind enough to give me for my birthday.