Hello, 41!

I turned 41 last week. Last Thursday. And today is the last day of a 4 day weekend, to boot. Some good things happened. Some bad things happened. I had quite a few dirty thoughts...didn't act on a single one of them, more's the pity. That's OK though.

I used to view birthdays with trepidation. Not at the thought of growing older, since the body grows old, but the mind doesn't, the ideas don't, so it's not the 'age' thing that bothers me. Some of the age-isms bother me. Some so-called 'milestone' birthdays are meant to be enjoyable and/or feared. The first birthday, the 10th (double digits!), 16th, 18th, 21st. Those are all supposed to be enjoyable. The others, the decades or the '9' birthdays are supposed to be feared. They've even got black candles and armbands and you're supposed to throw a party to celebrate the death of your youth or some such garbage.  I've never found the 9s or the decades particularly fearsome, personally.  No, I used to view birthdays with trepidation because it always came down to 'Will anyone notice or even care?'

My mother actually forgot my birthday one year. She thought it was still a week away, and I suppose it could be blamed on not looking carefully at the calendar. But I never had birthday parties growing up. The neighborhood kids came over for my 1st birthday (I've seen pictures). And growing up in Albuquerque, the neighbors came over for the obligatory cake and icecream. I'd go to parties, but wouldn't have them. And eventually, the question of whether or not anyone noticed became a moot thing.

Since I'm the center of my own universe, I noticed and that was what mattered. I started requesting the day off work, since I really didn't want to work on my birthday. When I was dating Idiot, we'd go out to eat on my birthday, and I'd end up paying*. Eventually, I started buying myself gifts or taking myself to lunch or dinner. Henry Rollins tickets became a big birthday purchase for me. Once with Idiot and once on my birthday by myself, then once here with Sic-un. Sic-un and I went to the circus, too. I took Toaster to dinner on my birthday before I left Albuquerque. It was a good dinner. 

This year, I took the day off work. Didn't sleep in, no, not this insomniac. I was up at 8:15 or so. Sent Sic-un off to work. Lazed about, went to the store, made a Meyer lemon meringue pie. Yes, lemon meringue pie. It's become my own little tradition.  I don't like birthday cake. Cake and ice cream together has always been a bit of a 'meh'. The frosting is always suspect, and ice cream is what it is. Neither ends up being very good. So I started making lemon meringue. This time it was Meyer lemons. I'm thrilled the local grocery is carrying them. And it's for the same price as their loose lemons.

The meringue came out as the thickest, foamiest, firmest I've ever made. I really like the way it turned out. I stuck my finger in it to check texture and it was like touching shaving cream. That thick, rich, pure foam consistency. I also boiled the lemon filling longer than the single minute all the recipes call for. I must have gone 3 or 4 minutes boiling. It's not that it hurt it or anything (constant stirring, good heat management), but I will say the pie is NOT weepy at all. There's a definite difference in the filling. All I can do is point at the boil time and remember it for next time (thicker filling=longer boil time)

Once the pie was out of the oven, then it was into the shower to get ready for dinner. Sic-un took me to Big Ed's for pizza. 2 small pizzas, pitcher of Amber Bock. Got a parking space right out front, too, which NEVER happens. Sic-un told the waitress it was my birthday. They don't sing to you (thank the GODS OF SINGING!)... They give you a t-shirt instead. We came home. Friday, Sic-un had the day off. We ended up cleaning a lot of stuff. The weather has thrown Sic-un's back for a loop again. The bathroom ceiling is no longer brown! The house smells good! Looks good! CLEAN!

Why the cleaning jag?
(ahem)
We had a cookout. Saturday. Yesterday. Yes. Yesterday. Invited friends over. We had people over for dinner. Yeah. We had a cookout. If you want, consider it one of Hyacinth's candlelight suppers without candles and a cookout instead.  J2-who's not as free-range as he may think, Grasshopper, J, someone new from work-Let's call her Harmony, my Japanese shark. Burgers! Potato salad! We'll provide beer, vodka, sweet tea, juices and lemonade. BYOB if you want something diff.

I was hoping Harmony would show up. She's... She's Harmony. One of the few women I would give my eyeteeth to go to bed with. She's HAWT. She didn't. J2 showed up...with his ex in tow. He calls her his ex, they are no longer living together, he wants Grasshopper... His ex is SCARY. She's seriously mental. And she doesn't think they're so very broken up. Grasshopper showed up. We had burgers.

I was drunk.

Seriously, totally wasted drunk. On not very much, actually. I started drinking around 4. Had a vodka lemonade. Had vodka lemonade #2 starting about 5ish. Was plastered by the end of the drink, which was somewhere around 6. Seriously plastered.
And here's how fucking mental J2's ex is.
I was sitting at the coffee table eating pie-it was delicious, and trying very hard to concentrate on the pie. I was drunk, recognized I was drunk, and I wanted pie. My head got hot, I started deep breathing (not nauseous. NOT NAUSEOUS, really. just hot-head), put my head down on the table (it was cool).
J2's ex started talking about getting sick and being sick and throwing up. Even after being told to stop.
Needless to say: I spent the rest of the party in the bathroom puking out that loverly hamburger and what pie I had managed to swallow.
I think she did it because she enjoyed it.

Now. Onto my presents to myself. I did myself a huge favor on Thursday and took 3 pictures of myself. All fully nude, one each forward, side and back shots. As a result, Tai chi starts next Saturday. And I may be getting a gym membership. I'm certainly going to be eating better (more veggies, less soda, more evenly spaced meals rather than 1 meal a day). I have done myself a great disservice and mean to rectify it. I think I have one more chance to see what I can do. I'm giving myself a year. With regular check-ins to make sure my body is doing what I want it to. At the end of a year, I promise I'll post the starting photos and the results.

And once I get relatively thinned out, I'm going to jump J2. Not as a boyfriend, but as just a guy I wanna fuck. And I'm gonna see about getting Harmony nekkid, too. I wanna see what I can do to make her scream.

Onto the age-isms next.
NO, I'm not on my 12th anniversary of being 29. I'm 41. FORTY ONE. I don't feel bad. I'm obese, but that's my own damn fault. I do not need nor want wrinkle cream, a face lift or liposuction***. I do dye my hair, but that's because the grey I do have makes it look dirty even when it's freshly washed. I am not pining for my lost youth, and quite frankly, from 25 to 35 was spent in my own little depressive hell. I wouldn't go back to that time FOR ALL THE MONEY IN THE NATIONAL TREASURY. I'm smarter now than I used to be. I don't want or need your stupid cholesterol medication**. I don't have kids, so I'm not looking at them graduating school. I don't have grandkids, so I don't have to babysit. My bowels are regular and my laundry is doing fine. I don't want OR need your stupid marketing. And if someone tells me I'm one day closer to dying...YES! So are you, dear sir and/or madam!

Life is fatal. The act of being born means you will die. The shell gets old, but the mind doesn't. I'm having more unadulterated FUN now than I have before in my life. I have a wonderful, loving partner that I plan on spending the rest of my life with. I have 2 (count 'em!) boyfriends I care deeply about. I have a bestie, and I have GOOD friends. I'm happy and horny and relatively healthy- in spite of the obesity: my blood pressure is fine, I'm not diabetic, and I haven't had a heart attack. The aches and pains aren't debilitating, and I'm looking at getting better.

I think this is going to be a good year.


*His excuse was that I made more money than he did, so he'd drive to the restaurant, I could pay for the meal. He would suggest renting a movie and we'd end up doing nothing but sitting on the couch all night. NOT the most exciting of times, but I was locked into a depression. I had no clue. And nobody pointed out the wrongness of this.
**I actually heard a commercial for one of the 'statin' drugs that doctors are handing out like candy and I paid attention. They said in their little disclaimers that it HELPS you keep your cholesterol down when diet and exercise aren't enough. They, of course, mean when you don't watch your diet and you don't really exercise. I say this because if I'm exercising the way I'm supposed to and I'm eating the healthiest I can eat, I won't NEED your stupid medication.
***Liposuction: "Let me cut into you and suck out fat and blood vessels." Everyone I've ever seen who has had liposuction OR who has had the belly band INSTEAD of losing the weight naturally looks like a weird bobblehead.