The Birthday Blog

I'm 22 today. I actually prefer the Spanish or Italian way of saying my age: I have 22 years. Much less an identification by age. It's more like a characteristic, like "I have blond hair" or "I have warts." This year's turning-of-age was marked by a burning desire to dress up as something...anything!...for Halloween. Or rather, the weekend before Halloween. I had:

1. A box
2. An apron

I settled on being:

3. A gypsy. Without the help of the box or apron, but with the fake flowers plucked from the mystery plant with tissue paper flowers tied on its branches on 56th street.

The actual birthday day is marked by birthday essayage. It's occurred to me that since my birthday is around midterms, of course it's going to suck as long as I'm in college. So that is nothing new.

Since writing about 19th century architecture theory is sort of taking the joy out of life right now, I have decided to do something new for my birthday. Something I rarely do: I have decided to list 5 things I am ok with about me because hey, when else would we celebrate this if not on the day I came into this world to share myself with you all? I spend 364 days out of the year critiquing myself, I am going to spend the remaining 3.5 hours writing an essay I don't want to, I am going to spend 5 minutes at least being grateful for being what I am.

Ok, maybe 5 things is too ambitious. Let's make it 3.

1. This might be really obvious and typical, but I am really happy I can find faults in myself. And that as a result I can see progress between turning 18 and turning 22. I've enjoyed, in part, assuming the role of a sort of detached observer at times and taking note of how I think I'm changing.

2. I like that I am not too timid to strike up a conversation with anyone. I have played the part of the third wheel on awkward dates or been invited as the happy medium in between 2 groups of strangers, and sometimes I feel like my calling lies here: in being a buffer between natural and awkward.

3. I like that I can't stand dirty bathrooms. A bedroom can be disorganized, a kitchen have all the cabinets open, but bathrooms must shine, SING, be a harmonious chord of clean and sanitary.

And with that, thanks for the birthday wishes! Happy Halloween!