Thirty years (and nine months!) in the making....my 30th birthday! Some people get bummed out about turning thirty - I was kind of looking forward to it. I'd had my big "Oh my god I'm getting older" existential crisis when I turned 25 - so after getting that out of the way, I was ready to welcome thirty with open arms. Here's how it all went down.
Monday, August 7th
August 7th was just a normal night around the house...but as soon as the clock struck midnight, Meredith appeared out of nowhere and sniped me with a birthday-treat!
After I got home from work the next night, Meredith handed me an envelope. I opened it and it contained a piece of paper with a clue on it! A scavenger hunt!
I hadn't really planning on doing anything to celebrate my actual birthday, but I relented and decided to text a few people and see if anyone was available to meet up for a last-minute, low-key dinner at Kate's Joint. A few people texted back so at 8:30 Meredith and I headed over to Kate's to meet up with Ellen, Vinay...
At some point during our meal, one of my weaselly friends managed to sneak away from the table and tip our waitress off to the fact that it was my birthday. She brought me a piece of cake, (complete with candle!) and my friends got to loudly sing "Happy Birthday" and embarrass me! Yay!
After our table had been cleared of food, and after looking around to make sure the coast was clear (dog in a restaurant = health code violation!), we had a special out-of-the-bag surprise visit from Edie!
Edie was exploring our new apartment and was really intrigued by a roll of saran wrap that she found (that'd we'd used to wrap boxes in our recent move). So I took it upon myself to use the packing-wrap to make Edie a little doggie outfit.
Edie was a good sport about it, but you could tell she wasn't really feeling her new outfit. Every time she moved, the wrap would loudly crinkle and she'd whip her head around like "Yo, what the fuck?"
Ellen decided to go avant-garde and challenge our perceptions of "functional clothing" with this stunning piece entitled "Crotch Bow." Tres chic! Paris awaits, mon petit génie!
Here's is our masterpiece! It's called See-Through Birthday Suit at Thirty. The saran-wrap garment serves as a skin-metaphor for identity and reminds us that that the world is new to us each and every morning. Which means, we are reborn a new each and every day.
After I was finished modeling my new look, Ellen and Leigh set out to make a version for Meredith. Notice the wonderful feminine re-interpretation of the original work that resulted in an off-the-shoulder look with a full-length skirt!
If you would've asked fifteen year-old me what I'd be doing on the night of my thirtieth birthday, I know without a doubt that he wouldn't have even come close to describing this photo.
Thursday night was my birthday observed! Sarah and Karen were DJing a lot at the Annex and they managed to get the downstairs open a few hours early so we could have a little get together down there before it opened up to the public later that night! (Thanks, you two!)
Meredith handled the rest of the party planning which is how I ended up with a "Monkey-Themed" birthday. Complete with homemade banana-decorated cupcakes...
...the monkey was just excited about all of us! Homeboy was packing!. Boy, thirty years old and still doing stuff like pretending an inflatable monkey's tail is a giant inflatable monkey-penis. I guess my eighth-grade guidance counselor was right about me all along! (At least he was wrong about the whole "ending up in jail" part! Er, at least so far anyway).
Mandy's such a size queen. Check her out doing the whole "his banana is bigger than his monkey-penis" comparison! (And by the way, is it wrong that this picture sort of turns me on?)
And here's Emily twenty minutes later getting the big "L is for Loser" from Siege after announcing that she was leaving to go home and sleep! But if Siege had known Emily for as long as I have - he'd know that Emily needs AT LEAST 10 hours of a sleep a night! No hard time from me, sugar! Thanks for going out of your way to swing by on a weeknight!
Right around eleven, Mr. David K. (aka - "Sketchy Dave") showed up with some lil' teen strumpet who was up in town for a few days visiting him from somewhere down south.
Oh man, I love this picture SO MUCH. Every time I look at David's face I can actually hear the perverted little cackle he does when something naughty happens: "Heh...heh...heeeh."
There's not much of a story to tell with rest of the photos. It's pretty much just me getting drunk with my friends. And I ended up getting pretty, pretty drunk - as evidenced by this photo I stole from Dens' Flickr that shows me triple-fisting three different types of drinks, each in a different type of container! (A cup of Scotch, a can of PBR and a bottle of Heineken. Oooof!)
Meredith had to get up for work bright and early the next morning too and bid me goodnight a little past midnight. (Siege was on hand to mock yet another early-departing guest).
...which led to a "oh no I'm gonna puke" scare about 10 minutes later. Leigh sat with me outside and I'm proud to say I managed to keep everything down. Yay, thirty! I'm a big boy now!
A few minutes later, Julie and Ralph stumbled outside and had a hilarious conversation where they tried to decided if they were "too drunk" to bike all the way back to Brooklyn. Hahaha. In the end, they decided to go for it! (And I'm happy report they made it home without incident).
Right as I decided to call it a night and head home, Leigh and I noticed that there was a big lump moving around inside of the garbage bag that was on the street in front of us. I got up off the steps to investigate! I started petting the big lump through the bag and confirmed that it was a giant rat trying to get out! We both screamed and retreated back to the steps and spend the next three minutes watching the rat try to maneuver his way out. (He ended up chewing a tiny hole and then quickly pushing his rat body out of it! I was too slow on the draw to get a photo). And that's the end of my 30th birthday party. Woooo! Happy Birthday, me!
