Today is my 30th Birthday!! This is supposedly a huge milestone. Personally, I have felt 30 for a while, mostly because I’m one of the last of my friends to turn over this leaf. But I have also felt 30 for a while because of these things:
- My hangovers last multiple days. I don’t just mean into the afternoon, I mean into the NEXT DAY’S AFTERNOON. No amount of fried food helps, either.
- I prefer sleep to alcohol. Friday nights in have become a regular thing.
- The pregame has been supplanted by the pre-nap. If you expect me to leave my house after 9 pm, I require a nap at least from 6pm-8pm.
- I have started referring to the times I used to drink and party in past tense. “I used to go here and do that.” “Oh, I remember those days as if they were 5 years ago.” (They were.)
- Everything cracks. My ankles, my shoulders, my elbows. I am physically falling apart.
That last one is semi-true, but also, I just ran a half marathon with a sprained ankle, so I guess I can’t complain too much about my body failing me. A lot has changed in the 30 years that I have been alive, though. Remember making mix tapes? As in, recording songs off of the radio? Trying so hard not to catch the DJ’s voice at the beginning, and praying that they didn’t cut the end of the song off with a dumb advertisement? We went from there, to CD’s and discmans, and from there to mp3’s, Napster and Kazaa (that BSB single was totally worth the computer virus), ipods, and now just listening to everything on our phones. As old as I sound by saying this, times have really changed.
Yesterday, I had a big celebration for my birthday and my parents came. The theme was “Nerdy Thirty” and my dad totally stole the show. It wasn’t just the socks and sandals (which definitely helped), or his name tag from a work conference where it said he was “between jobs” (omg), or the light shorts and Hawaiian shirt (also helped), but the star of the outfit was the contents of his pocket. First, he brought a paper that he stole from a gas station on his way to NYC. It was the tear-away calendar they use to check ID’s for buying cigarettes. It said, “Born After this date? NO TOBACCO. NO E-VAPOR”. And the date was 5-28-1998. 1998!!?!! WHAT?? People born in 1999 are now full, smoking, voting citizens in some states? That totally blew my mind. That means that NEXT year, people born in 2000 will be 18!!! Also surprising, the fact that my dad stole this paper off of the tear-away calendar and now this poor gas station will be one day off for the next 7 months of the year. Hopefully someone realizes before December 31.
Another thing in my dad’s pocket, and the real star of the party, was a floppy disc. He said, “I wonder what’s on here, does anyone have a computer that can read one of these things?” And everyone just started laughing hysterically. Times really have changed. My friend sent me a Facebook memory screen shot this morning from 2013, when a friend had asked me if I was staying in NYC forever. I said, “For now. Until I decide I want a boyfriend, because let’s be honest, I will NEVER find one here.” So, a few things have changed, as I roll up to my 2-year anniversary with emoji-bf. Thank god for OKCupid. I’ll tackle that in another post.
I hope to make 30 look good. My manicure lady said I don’t look a day over 25, but then she told me she was 35 and she has a 14-year-old son, when she looks 14 herself, so maybe her age judgment is a bit off. Here’s to a fun year of new technology and 3-day hangovers. You can find me in bed. All day.