birthday weekend

Try as I may have to get into work on Friday, Dave was having none of it. He dropped off the boy at daycare and we drove down to Sea Isle. You know what I love most about New Jersey? Hating New Jersey. It's so weird and gross and the people are just so... so... well, before I went to college I never met anyone from New Jersey but I had heard a lot of jokes about people from New Jersey. Three days into living down here I realized they weren't jokes, they were warnings.

I love it. I hate it. I love to hate it.

Sea Isle is funny because it's a hang out for people in their twenties and for people who used to be in their twenties but forgot that they have saggy boobs and guts and receding hairlines now.

I wanted to ride a rollercoaster so we went down (up? over?) to Wildwood once the sunburn started setting in. I have no idea of Jerseyography, and I refuse to look at a map because the thing I love second most about New Jersey is not knowing anything about New Jersey.

Eight effing dollars to ride a roller coaster. Forget it. And the batting cages were closed. I love batting cages. I suck miserably, but it's fun anyway. Provided you are wearing your bathing suit. It's the perfect mix of controlled aggression and partial nudity.

Late lunch and back to the city to get the brat before daycare closed.

I slept in the car and it was delicious.

Ask me what I did Friday night and I'll hum and drool. I have no idea. Short term memory is failing. That and varicose veins are the two worst things about getting older. I know I didn't have any Netflix. I think. So I'm assuming I didn't watch a movie. I am thinking about the dishes I did on Saturday morning before Jake had swimming and I don't recall anything being incredibly notable.

Forget it.

I don't even know if I left the couch.

If I spent Friday night with you, I apologize. It's not you, it's the brain's tendency to forget the last day of the 32nd year. I understand that it happens to everyone.
You are wonderful.

Saturday. Bum around the house, take Jake to swimming, trip to Target to pick up soda for Saturday night (I understand that some of you like to mix your drinks. Wusses) and lightbulbs and cat litter and papertowels and ended up spending 18 years in there because they are redoing the store and I couldn't find anything.

Well, I couldn't find anything but $117 worth of crap I just had to have. Is it possible to walk out of Target without spending at least $100? Honestly. It's like the eleventh circle of hell.

I had a very very very very very tiny gathering Saturday night. If you weren't invited it isn't because I don't have mad mad love for you. It's just that I wanted it to be small enough that we could all sit in the living room. Remember how when you were little and your mom was all like "five friends. FIVE. Don't bother asking for more. Five."? That's how I was.

And someone brought Jello shots. And I have this idea like if I'm eating vodka I can't get drunk so I had about six dozen jello shots.

And I got drunk. It was like that time when I believed that you couldn't get high if you ate weed and I set out to prove it to everyone at the party. Guess what? Your stomach acid doesn't break down THC before it reaches your bloodstream.

So, when I get drunk sometimes I get a little bit competitive. So I busted out Twister because I never lose. But I lost. Eventually. To this guy. Stupid Frank.


There are more pictures, but they are downright porny. Not intentionally, but when you are playing Twister, your face and body does things that kind of makes you look like you must look when you are doing it and I'm not comfortable with you seeing me and my goofball friends like that.
I almost cried when I lost. One because I LOST at effing TWISTER and two because I had been playing Twister for hours straight. That's rough when you are 33. There are parts of my thighs that are still burning.
I know I painted my kitchen the most perfect shade of blue because when we were standing in there my friends looked absolutely gorgeous against it. They were all tan and the wall was so blue and my heart split open with love regarding the whole thing. I tried to take a picture of the paintjob, but I can't get the color right. It's like the same as that hoodie thing the Virgin Mary is always wearing. Like a robin's egg. Like forget me nots. Like pure bliss. I want everything in my life that color.
3am, dozens of jello shots, glass of Powers, two pieces of pizza, a fingerful of chocolate icing, hours of good times and I went to bed.
Woke up 9am sweaty and alone and soupy.
Birthday over.
Cold shower.
Two aspirin.
Coke Zero.
Glass of water.
Cold pizza.
Kiss the cat.
Catch the sub.
Off at Walnut.
Walk to the Reading Terminal to meet Mikey and Heather.

We sat in the Beer Garden for a few hours, catching up on old and new times. Years melting the way they always do. Young again. I couldn't stop staring at the two of them. My friends are so beautiful. I wonder if that's by chance or on some sort of shallow purpose or just something that happens inside your head when you love someone so much.
I wish I had a camera but I didn't. The only picture I have of them is a hundred years old, back before the world flipped itself over, before we had babies.
When I was looking for that picture, I found this one:
Me and my mom and my brother and Mara.
Could that really have been the right date? 2002? Pabst Almighty.
Where does the time go?
This picture's double hangs in my mom's kitchen, I'll have you know before you're all like "what the hell is that place and why would you take your mother there?". Well, mostly because my mom is the same kind of girl I am, and girls like us hang out in places like that. She loves it.
Dollar PBRs are a thing of my past, however. That's like buying a hangover.
Next time you come over I'll show you the rest of the pictures from that night.
And regale you with stories that I'd never share here.