Birthdays, Capricorns and Expectations
Jan. 2nd, 2008 11:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peg22So I was cursed with a holiday birthday. Cursed. For the first few years of my life, I either had measles or chicken pox on my birthday. The year I finally got my Easy Bake Oven, I couldn't play with it cuz my mother the nurse didn't want me baking tiny bacteria cupcakes under that lightbulb. So my uncle used up all the little powder packages to make a huge cookie.
When I got older, I always had to have my birthday party WAY after my birthday since no one was in school and most parents were either hungover or watching football and couldn't be driving their kiddies down to Shakees Pizza . . .
When I got even older, the birthday became the finale of the New Year's Eve party. Midnight, kiss, kiss, bring out cake, sing happy birthday, eat cake, try to sober up, drive home . . . whoooo hooooo
So on my 40th birthday, I took off. To NYC. By myself. Best decision I ever made (except when I decided not to shave one side of my head and color it purple - hey it was the 80s okay?!)
I stood in a line at a real live deli on the Upper West side on the night of my birthday and my best friend called me and then I realized that Anthony Michael Hall was right behind me in line . . . And I saw Hugh Jackman in Boy From Oz and the last weekend of Take Me Out and Patrick Stewart in The Caretaker and I swore to never be home on my birthday again.
So this year (and last year) I've gone international. To Canada. And this year it snowed like it snows in On The Banks of Plum Creek when Pa had to eat all the Christmas candy cuz he got stuck in the snow bank and he was only able to save the oysters cuz they were in a can and I sat by the fire and I drank Bailey's and I turned another year older and I hardly noticed a thing. And it was perfect.
The problem is that I like it better when I'm on control of things. It's the Capricorn in me. Plus I'm a first born born on the first. Of the month. Of the year. Of everything. So I can't really help it.
And now I have to try, in the next few months, to give up, well LOADS OF CONTROL. Throw caution to the wind and throw in with another and leap empty handed into the void and make a left hand turn from the right hand lane. And it's just about as scary as finding my way from Charles De Galle airport to a hostel in the middle of Paris in the middle of the night with no map, no french money and no french words except the chorus of Lady Marmalade. But that turned out okay.
So I'll just make the decision to spend most days alternating between terror and terpsichory and be grateful that the void is there to leap screaming into.
Or something like that. I think I'm gonna have to write a lot of CRACK.
When I got older, I always had to have my birthday party WAY after my birthday since no one was in school and most parents were either hungover or watching football and couldn't be driving their kiddies down to Shakees Pizza . . .
When I got even older, the birthday became the finale of the New Year's Eve party. Midnight, kiss, kiss, bring out cake, sing happy birthday, eat cake, try to sober up, drive home . . . whoooo hooooo
So on my 40th birthday, I took off. To NYC. By myself. Best decision I ever made (except when I decided not to shave one side of my head and color it purple - hey it was the 80s okay?!)
I stood in a line at a real live deli on the Upper West side on the night of my birthday and my best friend called me and then I realized that Anthony Michael Hall was right behind me in line . . . And I saw Hugh Jackman in Boy From Oz and the last weekend of Take Me Out and Patrick Stewart in The Caretaker and I swore to never be home on my birthday again.
So this year (and last year) I've gone international. To Canada. And this year it snowed like it snows in On The Banks of Plum Creek when Pa had to eat all the Christmas candy cuz he got stuck in the snow bank and he was only able to save the oysters cuz they were in a can and I sat by the fire and I drank Bailey's and I turned another year older and I hardly noticed a thing. And it was perfect.
The problem is that I like it better when I'm on control of things. It's the Capricorn in me. Plus I'm a first born born on the first. Of the month. Of the year. Of everything. So I can't really help it.
And now I have to try, in the next few months, to give up, well LOADS OF CONTROL. Throw caution to the wind and throw in with another and leap empty handed into the void and make a left hand turn from the right hand lane. And it's just about as scary as finding my way from Charles De Galle airport to a hostel in the middle of Paris in the middle of the night with no map, no french money and no french words except the chorus of Lady Marmalade. But that turned out okay.
So I'll just make the decision to spend most days alternating between terror and terpsichory and be grateful that the void is there to leap screaming into.
Or something like that. I think I'm gonna have to write a lot of CRACK.
