Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Over the Hill
I'm turning 28 this Saturday and I feel kind of bored by the whole thing.
When I was a kid, of course, birthdays were a definite cause for celebration, a chance to get new Transformers (I personally was a fan of the Decepticons), go roller skating, and eat ice cream cake. You got to decide who was cool enough to be invited (generally based on whether they had a subscription to Nintendo Power Magazine), at least until your mom made you invite everyone in your class, even Mark Rice who ate paste and smelled like potatoes. You got to stay up all night with your friends, watching Batman repeatedly and playing incredibly tame truth or dare and continually protesting to your long-suffering parents that you really weren't making that much noise. And everyone had to bring you a present, although some of them (mainly the ones from the super religious kids, let's be honest) were kind of lame.
In college, of course, the focus was on drinking, whether it was the Boone's Challenge -- to see how many bottles of wine product you could down in the fifteen minutes before midnight on your birthday eve -- or the more traditional Century Club. You would stagger across the campus making out with statuary and peeing at the slightest provocation, and your friends would laugh at you, with someone invariably taking pictures to remind you that, yes, you really did steal the "Women's Health Month" poster from the student center. That was kind of more than okay, too.
But after college the fun sort of takes a downturn. You end up throwing parties for yourself -- inviting classmates or neighbors you don't know all that well to meet you at a bar you don't like that much, or, God forbid, getting taken out by coworkers for the obligatory birthday lunch. Sometimes there are even evites involved.
So I've decided I'll ring this one in quietly. Just a few friends at my house, maybe, or dinner at a restaurant I actually like. God willing, there'll be cookie cake involved.
I'm turning 28 this Saturday and I feel kind of bored by the whole thing.
When I was a kid, of course, birthdays were a definite cause for celebration, a chance to get new Transformers (I personally was a fan of the Decepticons), go roller skating, and eat ice cream cake. You got to decide who was cool enough to be invited (generally based on whether they had a subscription to Nintendo Power Magazine), at least until your mom made you invite everyone in your class, even Mark Rice who ate paste and smelled like potatoes. You got to stay up all night with your friends, watching Batman repeatedly and playing incredibly tame truth or dare and continually protesting to your long-suffering parents that you really weren't making that much noise. And everyone had to bring you a present, although some of them (mainly the ones from the super religious kids, let's be honest) were kind of lame.
In college, of course, the focus was on drinking, whether it was the Boone's Challenge -- to see how many bottles of wine product you could down in the fifteen minutes before midnight on your birthday eve -- or the more traditional Century Club. You would stagger across the campus making out with statuary and peeing at the slightest provocation, and your friends would laugh at you, with someone invariably taking pictures to remind you that, yes, you really did steal the "Women's Health Month" poster from the student center. That was kind of more than okay, too.
But after college the fun sort of takes a downturn. You end up throwing parties for yourself -- inviting classmates or neighbors you don't know all that well to meet you at a bar you don't like that much, or, God forbid, getting taken out by coworkers for the obligatory birthday lunch. Sometimes there are even evites involved.
So I've decided I'll ring this one in quietly. Just a few friends at my house, maybe, or dinner at a restaurant I actually like. God willing, there'll be cookie cake involved.
