Pushing 30

This summer my friend Natasha and I decided to celebrate our birthdays, which are only a few days apart with a special date night at a romantic French restaurant. We sat on the patio and both had lamb and chocolate soufflés. We split the most delicious bottle of wine, the name of which I can’t recall and while it wasn’t exactly how I dreamed of testing out the place, Nat was as hot of a date as any and we had a great time. That is until she had the audacity to say that we were “pushing 30”. To which I covered my ears, hummed and finally cried, “Shut your dirty, dirty mouth!”

I realize that I am by no means approaching death but I am, however, officially in my late 20’s and that is freaking my shit out. Particularly because I am having serious career issues, have no love life to speak of, my friends are all getting married and dare I say, breeding, and the closest thing that I have to a loving relationship is with my newly adopted, blind, obese, herpes-ridden cat.

My birthday, which took place mid-July, was one of levity and anguish. I mean, what says, “Happy Birthday Old Ass” more than getting birthday spanked by a biker gang. Once worse – having your mother provoke the whole thing.

My wonderful family met up at Les Bourgeois Vineyards in Rocheport for an impromptu birthday celebration in my honor – a fantastic idea if it wasn’t for the fact that the wine drinking started at 1pm.

We are a loud bunch even when we are sober, which isn’t too often (see issue number 11) so we shouldn’t have been concerned when a biker gang decided to split our pavilion. Somehow we thought they would be the ones to cause a raucous. HA.

How I went from boisterous conversations at the table with my aunts, to taunting the biker men who happened to be from my home town, to agreeing (under duress, mother’s insistence, liquid courage/stupidity and a $20/person donation) to let the bikers give me a birthday spanking, I will never know.

I made sure to get mine though. Every turn deserves another. Plus their wives said if they were going to be smacking ass then they had to sacrifice their own behinds in return.

Needless to say by the time we made it to my godmother’s house for the BBQ, I was a hot mess. A sad, sappy hot mess. This is why drinking large amounts of wine is never a good idea. There is a country song that says, “Tequila makes her clothes fall off.” Well they need to have a song that says, “Chardonnay makes her cry and call daddy.” But I guess that is probably not as catchy.

I am not sure exactly what I blubbered about and luckily my father and step-father, who got stuck with round two, didn’t remind me but I am pretty sure it had something to do with me deciding not to take a partial scholarship to grad school at NYU, instead staying, lost and confused in the mid-west. I cried and cried until eventually I passed out on the couch, unaware of the party still going on.

The next day I woke up in time to say goodbye to the family before meeting up with my best friend and my god-daughter for an actual birthday, birthday brunch. Somehow I don’t feel like I am sending the right message to her when I am so hung over I can barely help her color her menu.

The real kicker of the weekend, however, was the bus ride back home. I had decided to take public transportation so I could ride down with my aunt and still be able to see Erica and Maddy. Clearly, I had not thought the trip through. Not in the departure time, which was an hour later than I had thought. Not in my wardrobe, which was a halter sun dress that much to the delight of the man across the aisle from me, left everything exposed as I curled up in the fetal position in my seat, drooling during an uncomfortable sleep on the way home. And not in the bus terminal, which was not across the street from my loft as I expected but 12 blocks south and 10 blocks east on Troost. Luckily, I realized in route that I had left my keys in my aunt’s car and my poor uncle had to leave a BBQ he was throwing to come pick me up.

Lesson here people? I am getting far too old for this shit. Getting spanked by bikers and flashing transients is not appropriate 28 year old behavior and a traumatic birthday is no excuse.

I might be getting old but I still have some growing up to do and hopefully I will have it all figured out by the time I turn 29.

But I am not counting on it.