Birthdays are weird for me; or maybe birthdays are weird for everyone? Yeah. Birthdays are weird for everyone. I have always been firmly opposed to getting older. This is most likely from years of lusting after sexy, live-action Peter Pan and being genuinely horrified by the show, “Rugrats: All Grown Up”. Don’t get me wrong I love my birthday just as much as the next person but never as much as “Birthday Bitches”. If you don’t know who Birthday Bitches are they are people who treat birthdays like their own personal Met Gala. They cherish their birthdays like it’s their graduation, wedding, and funeral all in one and to be honest...I respect the hell out of them. These are people who do stuff like post “It’s my birthday month!!!!!” and really internalize the song “In Da Club” by 50 Cent. They really know how to treat themselves. They are their own sugar daddy and sugar baby. We need Birthday Bitches. Without them who would buy us midday pickleback shots or tell us our moon sign?
I definitely was a birthday bitch when I was younger. Though having your birthday in the winter, I think you have no choice but to be one. I have had a snowstorm on my birthday for at least 21 out of 23 of the last January 6ths. I’ve always tried to make the best of it. Sharing my birthday is pretty awesome too. You would think being a twin would make birthdays kind of a bummer but I am here to tell you it is the fucking best. I mean think about it. For one, growing up with a boy twin we got to have co-ed parties every year (an absolute dream for two deeply closeted bisexuals). Secondly, you get double of everything. Double the Chuck E. Cheese tickets, double the marble cake, double the cheesy crust pizza. My parents were a perfect birthday tag team. I vividly remember one year when we woke up to a heartbreaking call from the Bluff’s Inn (the shitty motel with a pool down the street from our house) telling us their pool froze over. The Bluff’s Inn was one of the funnest birthday spots in town. Kids who had their parties at the Bluff’s were legendary. The pool was so deep that the pressure at the bottom made you feel like your head was going to explode. Also earlier that year at Betsy Manning’s birthday party I learned how to do the “Crank That” Soulja Boy dance so I knew I had to outdo her with my big bash. I was crushed to hear the Bluff’s was closed. We only had a few hours before the kids from school were supposed to show up and not to mention I had bought a new two-peice swimsuit from Pac Sun. My parents sprung into action. My mom quickly called everyone in the guest book and my dad used his secret weapon, the keys to the gymnasium building at the local liberal arts college. It was the most kickass birthday ever. My dad shut off all the lights in the building and gave us all flashlights to play “flashlight tag” (which might be a made up dad game but when you’re 10 those were the most fun). Kids at the party talked about it for years afterward and my dad is still an absolute legend for it.
I never truly understood how hard my parents worked at birthdays. They really busted their asses once a day every year to make sure we had the most perfect day in the whole goddamn world. This is why adult birthdays are so...uncomfortable. No one tells you when you’re growing up how hard it is to host a perfect party. It was like when I learned how often my dad cleaned the toilet. I really just thought that thing cleaned itself. My parents treated January 6 like it was the 1996 Grammy Awards and we were both Alanis Morrisette. It’s hard to treat yourself like 1996 Alanis Morrisette. We were so lucky to have parents that cared so much. I mean what I wouldn’t give to have one day a year where I got to invite my whole 2nd grade class to an American Idol/Tonka Truck themed birthday party with unlimited cheese pizza at the Decorah, Iowa bowling alley. After you graduate high school you are released into a world of awkward bar hangs, confusing birthday texts from ex’s and constant emails from Buffalo Wild Wings reminding you to reclaim your “Blazin Rewards” and no one prepares you for it. My adult birthdays have been a bizarre grab bag of it all. I have done the disorienting mass facebook invite, I have done the “it’s my birthday” barista tip jar and I have done the sitting alone in my room watching HBO’s miniseries Angels in America and sobbing. I have had some great ones and I have had some okay ones.
My 21st birthday was definitely toward the top of the list. I had just moved to NYC and started dating my now boyfriend, Jacob. He is really good with birthdays. I think that is the mark of a good partner along with tipping well and the ability to quote the movie Stepbrothers in its entirety. 21 felt like a big one...mostly because it was. I had never really drank up until that point (other than a couple times in high school in an empty barn with a few other closeted queers.) I had a fake ID but that was exclusively used to perform at half empty open mics and pretend I was cool at UCB improv shows. So when January 6 came around I knew two things, I wanted to get drunk and I wanted to be super queer while doing it. We decided on the gay epicenter, Stonewall. This is funny to me now because at the time I didn’t know the only people who go to Stonewall now are straight people and old West Village gays looking to do drag bingo (okay but seriously drag bingo is so fun). Me and Jacob dressed in our best bisexual attire. I squeezed into a sheer black top with a sparkly gold bikini top peeking out underneath and he had taken the neon, reflective shirt he had gotten for working for his hometown’s city street maintenance over the summer and cut it into a crop top. We were two baby queers off to our first day of gay bar kindergarten. The unfortunate truth about having your birthday in the middle of winter is it is usually fucking horrible outside. That year my 21st birthday was smack dab in the middle of a “BOMB CYCLONE.” I am not making this up. It was like it was a snowstorm named after a Van Halen song. Glam Rock winter storm aside, we were going to Stonewall and I was going to dance my ass off and order a vodka cranberry because just like meteorologist Eddie Van Halen said, “You’ve gotta roll with the punches to get to what’s real.”
The night was a success. Well, sort of. The bar was pretty empty but that didn’t stop me from living out my queer drunk birthday dreams. The bartender gave me free vodka crans all night and the song Calabria played 3 times in a row.
I’m looking forward to 24. To be honest when I was younger I thought every older person I met was either 21 or 32 so I haven’t put a lot of thought into what goes into being 24. But I don’t know 24 seems...hot. I mean think about how you treat 23 year olds compared to how you treat 24 year olds. 23 is like the United Airlines of ages. It’s practical, it’s relatively got its shit together but you can only trust about half the things it tells you. 24 is sexy Southwest. Clean, smooth, reliable and the inflight wifi isn’t just a pop up window that says. “Error. Please try again later.” I’m glad I am welcoming 24 with open arms and zero expectations. Well, I guess I shouldn’t say zero. Let’s say I have about 9 expectations but all of them are pretty obtainable and also none of them include pickleback shots.
Gara