Who's a man now?
I’ve had a real busy week so the writing has had to relegated behind lots of things like doing ‘work’ and sorting my brain out.
The bastards let me arrange things for my own birthday. I was resenting the fact that I was (again) having to go around organising people together to come out to what was supposedly meant to be a celebration of me and my life. Year after year there is this pressure to ‘do something’, and it’s on your back for everybody else to come and have a fantastic time. This year I had to arrange a restaurant and ring up people all day –needless to say no-one was free – but I was determined to not the usual wave of depression to wash over. You tell yourself, ‘what is a birthday?’ ‘Isn’t the modern birthday just some meaningless nonsense conjured up by some strange rich guy a long time ago?’ No matter what reasoning performed, the small feeling of loneliness cannot be avoided if you don’t live up to this expectation to be happy and popular. Since this was my 21st, that sad, isolated feeling was definitely not going to be outmanoeuvred by logic.
Anyway, I was going to meet my handful of friends to go to this restaurant actually just wanting to get it out the way when the impossible happened… ‘Happy Birthday’, ‘ome dettoo! (congratulations!)’, was being shouted from the courtyard below the staircase I was sloppily descending. Amelia had, for the last week been arranging a ‘surprise’ birthday for me. I gave a speech which went something like this, ‘thank you so much, I’d like to congratulate myself on all my achievements and getting this far’. You see I was hoping it was so wildly inappropriate that people would find it bloody hilarious, and, quite obviously no-one did. Everything was perfect: I felt loved and not at all lonesome, the food (prepared by my friends) was delicious, there were fountains of beer, I received many headbands as presents, I didn’t have to lift a finger, and there was a party game.
The piñata was very, very durable, but it was hard not to laugh when people looked like complete idiots (especially when they imagine they are samurai just because they are in Japan – yes, I am that kinda man).
I cannot remember such a good birthday (however, I did wish that my family was there. For the sober stage at least). I wasn’t even sick the next day. Thank you so much Amelia.
The bastards let me arrange things for my own birthday. I was resenting the fact that I was (again) having to go around organising people together to come out to what was supposedly meant to be a celebration of me and my life. Year after year there is this pressure to ‘do something’, and it’s on your back for everybody else to come and have a fantastic time. This year I had to arrange a restaurant and ring up people all day –needless to say no-one was free – but I was determined to not the usual wave of depression to wash over. You tell yourself, ‘what is a birthday?’ ‘Isn’t the modern birthday just some meaningless nonsense conjured up by some strange rich guy a long time ago?’ No matter what reasoning performed, the small feeling of loneliness cannot be avoided if you don’t live up to this expectation to be happy and popular. Since this was my 21st, that sad, isolated feeling was definitely not going to be outmanoeuvred by logic.
Anyway, I was going to meet my handful of friends to go to this restaurant actually just wanting to get it out the way when the impossible happened… ‘Happy Birthday’, ‘ome dettoo! (congratulations!)’, was being shouted from the courtyard below the staircase I was sloppily descending. Amelia had, for the last week been arranging a ‘surprise’ birthday for me. I gave a speech which went something like this, ‘thank you so much, I’d like to congratulate myself on all my achievements and getting this far’. You see I was hoping it was so wildly inappropriate that people would find it bloody hilarious, and, quite obviously no-one did. Everything was perfect: I felt loved and not at all lonesome, the food (prepared by my friends) was delicious, there were fountains of beer, I received many headbands as presents, I didn’t have to lift a finger, and there was a party game.
The piñata was very, very durable, but it was hard not to laugh when people looked like complete idiots (especially when they imagine they are samurai just because they are in Japan – yes, I am that kinda man).
I cannot remember such a good birthday (however, I did wish that my family was there. For the sober stage at least). I wasn’t even sick the next day. Thank you so much Amelia.
posted by Shaun at 13:21
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