8 days of birthday bliss

To understand the full value of this, let me explain what normally happens when you have a birthday on new years eve.

New years is that holiday that always gets forgotten until after christmas is over. Having a birthday on an often overlooked holiday makes the birthday doubly easy to overlook, because you've only barely thought of the holiday and aren't about to go remembering that someone's birthday is that same day. The last time I can remember a friend calling me on my birthday was in high school... from a friend who had the same birthday. (Remember, high school for me was over in 1998.) I say this not to throw myself a pity party, but to demonstrate just how fantastic this birthday was.

To start with, Adam started giving me birthday gifts even before christmas. The man spoiled me with 8 days of birthday gifts. 8 days, folks. Then on thursday, two days before my birthday, the two of us were in the basement watching his new dvd's of “The West Wing” and Summer, Adam's housemate (and mine too, when I live with them during school vacations) and an amazing dessert chef whose birthday is also on new years eve, came down to interrupt... with an enormous and delicious chocolate chip birthday cookie. (I've never much liked birthday cake; understand that this cookie was the perfect dessert for me.) It was bigger than a pizza, and fresh out of the oven.

Then, when the birthday actually arrived, we went out for breakfast to a favorite french cafe with my dad, his girlfriend, and my sister (the latter two, for future reference, will be referred to as "the Audreys" as they are both named Audrey). After they left, I ripped into the grand finale of gifts from Adam, and we got dressed up to go downtown for drinks and appetizers at Martini's, a fantastic restaurant in the short north.

We rang in the new year at home with James and Summer, playing catch-phrase. Perhaps the best part of the whole day, though, was the number of calls and messages I got that evening from friends wishing me a happy birthday and new year. I have a tendency to get rather depressed around midnight, realizing another birthday has passed, another year gone by. Feelings of nostalgia and loneliness sneak up on me. But this year, I didn't have so much as a twinge of depression. I did come close to getting choked up hearing Dick Clark's impeded speech from his apparently having suffered a stroke, but that was mostly because it was inspiring.

Complete birthday bliss was what the whole thing was.

So far, I like being 26.