Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Birthdays are for "Whooping it Up"

Conventional wisdom tells us that we are supposed to "whoop it up" on our birthdays, and do whatever it is "whooping it up" entails--whether that be eating too much cake, dancing like a crazy fool, or ripping shots of Yegermeister at a bar til 2:00 a.m.  For most of us, it's somewhere in between.  While none of my birthdays have been as dour of occassion as the day which marked my 30th year, last year's birthday wasn't my best either.

Through no fault of my own, there was no "whooping it up" to ring in my 33rd.  When I bought my condo in late August, I aimed to have my closing sometime in September, because my apartment lease was up on September 30th and it would be difficult and costly to try to extend the lease.  All the financing was quickly processed, and my bank was just barely able to make my request happen in time.  The closing date was set for September 28th.  This meant that September 29th--my birthday--was moving day.  Ugh. 

I'm not sure how many of my readers have ever moved, but I will categorically attest that it is one of the least pleasant experiences a human can suffer.  The more stuff you acumulate, the worse it is.  Moving is a magnifying glass that is held up right to our faces to tell us how much absolute crap we have acumulated over the years.  I have moved five times in my life, and I'm fairly certain that in each of those five moves, I've: 1.)  Broken something of actual or sentimental value while all my crap stayed fully intact and 2.) Burst into tears.

I was so exhausted after two full days of moving last year that my birthday was a complete afterthought.  By 10 p.m. that evening, I unpacked a bottle of red wine and sipped my celebratory glass out of a styrofoam cup with some cold pizza straight out of the box (no plates unpacked yet).  Umm, happy birthday I guess.

While I'm not celebrating buying a new home this year, I will get to do a moderate amount of "whooping it up."  I'm heading to Brio for dinner with my parents, then I'm off to The Pub to have some drinks with friends.  My friend Jenn, who will be accompanying for drinks me tonight, was born on St. Patrick's Day, for which I will be eternally jealous.  While she does have to share her birthday with an Irish saint, people are already in a great mood and are anxious to party when her special day rolls around.  It's not as easy of a task to gather friends for celebrating on a random Wednesday... but gosh darnit if we aren't going to try.

A full report on the "whooping it up" will follow later.

2 comments:

Jamie said...

Happy Birthday!!! Maybe if you can't find a big party to happen tonight you can make one happen this weekend :) I love to extend my bdays out for at least a week :)

Gabrielle Visca said...

Thanks Jamie! I had a great bday, but I will go ahead and extend it a little into this weekend as well...excellent idea.