I'm a proud Birthday Diva - yeah, I said it!
You can find me drinking bourbon, hiding under my bed.
It’s my birthday week. It is filled with acts of self-indulgence and not the best self-care. None of these acts involves anything remotely healthy: no Pilates, no profound acts of reflection, no gratitude journaling. The Apple activity-tracking watch remains in the bathroom drawer. This is the week where I don’t care about how many calories I eat or the bottles of booze I consume. My ass gets so lazy that my dog knows to go potty on the pee pads I leave at the front door.
I get that by the time you hit puberty, no one cares about your birthday – it’s more a race for when the girls get their first bra and when the boys experience interesting voice changes. My birthday is the ONE day, which I extended to a week after hitting the 4-0 milestone, that gets to be all about me! Damn it!!
The wonderful thing about having friends who understand and appreciate you is that they support your indulgences no matter how strange they may seem. Mine are very specific and weird.
One, I have to eat chocolate cake all week. Why? Every year, someone would give me a chocolate cake for my birthday – whether from a family member, a friend, or a co-worker. There were two times when chocolate cake did not arrive on my birthday, resulting in dire consequences.
The first time was when I worked at a television under a vile VP named Kenny. I was doing what I usually do the week before my birthday during my office work days, telling everyone about it. Kenny asked if I had any food allergies. I said, “Yes, I’m allergic to bananas.” What does Ken do? He instructs his evil assistant to bring me a banana cream pie into the office for my birthday. Evil assistant and Ken come into my office and say, “Yeah, we hear it is your birthday, so we got you a banana cream pie. Will you eat it so we can see what kind of allergic reaction you will have?” I grabbed that banana cream pie of death. I head towards Kenny and the evil assistant, proudly informing them I plan to toss said cream pie of death in the garbage. Off to the trash it went. Two weeks later, Kenny fired me after his sophisticated banana cream plot failed to materialize. Fortunately, I got a better job quickly, and Ken was fired from the television group a few months later. Last I heard, Kenny was let go from his dream job selling porn movies across Asia.
The second time, I was new to an office job. I tried not to be too self-promoting about my birthday and how I love chocolate cake. No one in the office picked up on my subtle hints, resulting in no chocolate cake that day. A few months later, I was audited by the IRS and did not receive favorable mammogram results. While I was on subsequent medical leave, thanks to unfavorable mammogram results, I guilted half the office with, “All I want when I come back to work is a chocolate cake since no one got one on my actual birthday”. Guilt is a powerful tool sometimes. Yeah, it’s shallow, but it’s all about me!
This year, I got TWO chocolate cakes! One homemade and one from my favorite bakery from two of my dearest friends. The other weird, though I call it superstitious thing I do on my birthday is eat the same meal every year at my favorite Italian restaurant. In past years, I have dragged my friends on a Monday night in the pouring rain or under a COVID lockdown to do this. God bless them.
Another thing I do during birthday week is get totally shitfaced drunk every night. As one Mr. George Thorogood preaches through song, ‘I drink alone and prefer to be by myself’ when this takes place. The only exception is going out to the previously mentioned favorite Italian restaurant, where I also get shitfaced drunk.
There is no exception this year! I was exercising equal opportunity in my boozing, starting with cheap prosecco and resulting in a poor-this-bourbon from the bottle directly into my mouth consumption. Getting a glass would have exerted too much energy, which was redirected toward crawling under my bed with that bottle of bourbon. One underrated benefit of being hungover is that you forget about most of your life problems because the focus is on getting to the other side of that hangover. Let’s call my excessive birthday boozing and endless chocolate cake consumption my form of annual self-cleansing. I have two more days of self-indulgence until birthday week is over.
I’m terrified of getting on that scale and wearing non-stretchy clothes on Monday.
Under your bed sounds like a great place to have a great big drink and drown our sorrows! Wish I was there! Enjoy the rest of your fab Birthday week! This was so fun to read amidst all the blah, blah, do-goody crap that’s on social media. You be you!!! Miss you, call me! -Amy from VMW