Best Birthday EVAR

I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with my birthday. First of all, being born on September 8th always guaranteed that a) in order to get to my birthday, I would have to go back to school and b) everyone would be so preoccupied with the whole “shit we have to go back to school” thing that people invariably forgot that it was my birthday. For someone who loves being the center of attention, this was a terrible, terrible fate.

To compensate, I took to organizing my own parties and hysterically reminding people “it’s my birthday! It’s my birthday! IT’S MY BIRTHDAY!” Of course, nobody likes to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into Happy Birthday Land. I felt guilty. I got tired of organizing my own birthday parties. I got tired of feeling like I was forcing people to celebrate instead of just letting us all naturally have fun.

I was acting like a total birthday jerk. I didn’t like the person that I became on September 8th.

So, this year I let it all go. Well, I mostly let it go. I concentrated on planning the best birthday that I could for Kristian, whose birthday is on August 31st. Unlike me, the attention whore, Kristian doesn’t like having a fuss made over him. So, I just concentrated on making sure that every detail was planned out and planned well. It was just a simple dinner out with a few friends and a cake afterwards. But, I took care of everything. Well, except for the cake which my Mom graciously bought for me when I realized that I was running out of time.

Kristian repaid my birthday planning with a birthday that was perfect, absolutely perfect. I don’t deserve this man. He deserves a supermodel girlfriend who is a member of mensa, a gourmet chef, a massage therapist (who likes to practice!)… Mother Theresa with a cute smile and a nice rack (and… you know… not a nun).

Wednesday night I had a show (the aforementioned blue drink bonanza, which Kristian dutifully came to in order to support me. I’m going to have to write some new songs or he’s going to get sick of all of mine. I was planning to go at the end of the night, but I ended up right in the middle. So, I was freaking out that I was going to be playing to an empty bar. Not only did Kristian rush through dinner in order to get there on time, he brought me an early birthday present.

Specifically, he brought me these. Like I said, I don’t deserve him.

The festival of Happiness-That-Hope-Doesn’t-Really-Deserve continued on Friday night. Kristian planned an entire evening on his own. He invited all of my friends, had everything planned out, and the whole thing was a total surprise. We had dinner at a nice Thai restaurant. The wait-staff brought out fried ice-cream and sang to me (The best part? When they laughingly repeated the whole thing two minutes later for the other birthday party that was there. The other Birthday Boy and I exchanged smiles and thumbs up). We all went to this great karaoke/dive bar where I got to sing cheesy songs and the DJ complimented my shoes and gave me a free t-shirt.

Oh, and my main birthday present was a beautiful star necklace (From Tiffany’s).

Thank you, Kristian, thank you. I tried to make your birthday as perfect as possible… because you make my life perfect every day that we spend together. Whether it be making dinner because I’m tired, holding me close when I’ve had a bad day or cleaning up kitty-vomit after Tabitha coughs up a hairball on the rug, you do so many wonderful things for me. I hope that your birthday was special for you. I know that mine was.

PS. That picture is from a wedding that we went to on Saturday.