Happy Birthday To Me

For the last few years, I’ve spent a week of April in Sarasota. Leslie heads that way because her kids have spring break. And it’s hard for me to turn down an opportunity to spend seven nights sleeping on a sleep-sofa with a pillow shaped like a concrete curb. Okay, spending seven days picking seashells and eating gelato with Anders and Olivia also help in the convincing department.

Last year Leslie told my mom she wanted to get me a birthday cake. While my birthday had recently passed, she thought it would be fun to surprise me. Also, she specifically wanted to get one from Morton’s, a gourmet food store that has fruit tarts that make my heart flutter.

“Their cakes are too expensive,” my mother said as she steered her Mercedes Benz into the driveway of her lakefront vacation house, her gold Italian ring clinking against the gear shift.

Nothing was done. No one bought cake. No one sang me happy birthday. Not that it mattered. No really, it didn’t. Spending a week wading through the warm waters of the gulf before plopping down on the white sand beach to build a sand castle really puts things in perspective.

“PJ, I want us to do something to celebrate your birthday when you guys come down,” my mom said a few weeks ago. “We’ll go out to dinner.”

“We can just do the Lazy Lobster,” I said, selecting this eatery because it’s close to the house, has a kids menu, and serves lobster. Plus the service is impeccable, you can sit outside and did I mention they have lobster?

“No, we always go there. We can go anywhere. It’s your birthday!”

“Okay, well, let’s do Libby’s.” I had only been there once for lunch and was eager to sample their dinner menu.

A week later, my mother rang to propose we go to an Italian place on Main Street. “This way the kids can get pizza.”

“Leslie just took the kids to an authentic French restaurant and they did just fine,” I countered, omitting the fact that I don’t really much care for Italian food and very much don’t care for any of the restaurants dotting Main Street. It is as if that address guarantees mediocre fare.

“But Mediterraneo is quite good.” This from a woman who is 100% Italian and has always expressed a disdain for the food of her people. It was like a vegan proposing dinner at The Palm.

A week passed before my mother called again, this time to ask what night we should celebrate my birthday at that restaurant I had absolutely no interest in experiencing. “Leslie doesn’t know what time they’ll get in on Monday so I thought Tuesday night.”

“Let’s go Wednesday night. No need to run out for dinner the second night they’re in.”

“But Tuesday is closer to your birthday,” my mother argued.

“Closer by twenty-four hours but still a week later. Plus, Wednesday is a nice mid-vacation break.”

Yesterday Leslie rang to check in. Somewhere between her description of heavenly coconut cake she got from a bakery near her house and the highlights of working the school book drive, she mentioned our mother. “Oh, and Mom just told me she booked that Italian place for Thursday night. You know, for your birthday. Hey do you even like Italian?”

Happy Birthday to me!




PS: Yes, today is my birthday. In anticipation of eating cake for every meal, I worked out extra hard this morning.

PPS: Based on the number of restaurants mentioned in this post, one might conclude I am obsessed with food. I am.

Update: In the twenty-four hours since the post was originally penned, and with some help from Leslie, my mother has conceded that since it is technically my birthday, I should have some say in the festivities. We are now going to Libby’s. On Wednesday night. Like I wanted.

I'll Always Have My Pepper Mill

I bought my television thirteen years ago when I finally uprooted myself from my childhood bedroom and set out for an apartment of my very own. I immediately purchased a bed and a Peugot pepper mill. If you’re a foodie, you'll totally understand the relevance of the second item. Anyway, I eventually bought bookshelves, a television, dressers, and sofas. But I’d be remiss if I didn't credit my mother for motivating me to make these other purchases. Translation: she threatened to cut me out of the will and dragged me to Ikea and Bed Bath & Beyond, places that I’m allergic to. Five years later, I moved everything down the street to my new condo and there it has remained.

“I’m going out to finally buy a new television,” I said to my mother the other day. “I was just watching the news and I can only see 1/3 of Al Roker.”

“Well it’s about time, PJ.”

She was right. When that weird HD conversion thing occurred, I lost one inch of the picture on either side. No setting option fixes it. And a few months ago the power button on the remote stopped working. So, like, to turn the thing off and on I have to walk up to it and press a button. I drive an Audi, own five Prada purses, and just spent $40 on soap. The time had come for me to put on my big-girl panties and just buy a damn television.

“The 46-inch looks so much better,” I mumbled into my phone while standing in the Best Buy television department, a section of the store bustling with eight salivating men and me.

“So get it,” Leslie said.

“Won’t fit. Well, unless I want a few inches to hang over the edge and block the bookcases that neighbor the television stand.”

“Then move the bookcases,” Leslie suggested.

“Yeah, um, I can’t. The only reason they don’t resemble the Leaning Tower of Pisa is because they can lean against the television stand.”

“No, for real, when will you stop living like a college student? First your sofa breaks and you fix it by propping it up on an upside-down brownie pan and now this. Paige, you’re almost forty.”

“Hey, a handyman fixed my sofa in the fall,” I countered, knowing it still didn’t make up for the fact the sofa cushions have lost their loft and that the side of my bed that I typically ignore is uphill from the side I prefer. And yes, I have regularly flipped the mattress. “Okay, Okay,” I said as if to wave a white flag of surrender, “I’ll get a new TV.”

A few hours later I finally returned home. In my hand was the only purchase I had made: two cupcakes from a boutique bakery two towns over. I turned on my old television and kicked off my shoes. Then I plopped down on my sofa, took a bite of a cupcake, and watched 60 Minutes. Or, more accurately, according to the cutoff logo in the bottom right corner, 60 Minu. But to be honest, having part of Andy Rooney’s ginormous head cropped out of the shot as he spews old man intolerance kinda makes him less annoying.

Just Like Riding A Bike

They say it's like riding a bike. That once you get going, it all comes back to you. Anxiously you grip the handlebars. Reluctantly you set one foot on a pedal. And then you spend five minutes negotiating with your self-doubt about pushing off the curb already.

At first you look like a drunk college kid stumbling home from an all-night kegger. If there were paint on the tires, you're pretty sure your trajectory would spell out "spazz" on the ground behind you. But by the second block, slowing up enough to look both ways for cross-traffic but keeping enough forward momentum to avoid having to stop altogether, something clicks. Indeed, you think as the wind blows your tresses off your neck, it is just like riding a bike.

Except the back tire on my two-wheeler is flat. I know this because I saw its deflated state when I went to my storage closet to return the vacuum cleaner, my duffel bag, a pile of wrapping paper. First I looked up and wondered why I had bothered to hold onto a useless embossed tin container that has sat ignored on my shelf for five years. Then I looked down and saw the tire. The wide nubs pressed flat against the parquet wood floor. A dust bunny the size of an egg clung to the tired rubber. I glanced at the vacuum, the tire, the vacuum, and then turned off the light and closed the door.

In the past I set aside hours, evenings, weekends to write. When an idea came to me, an excitement raced through my veins. I would end a phone call or cancel social plans for the sake of sitting at my computer to say what was swirling around in my head. But ever since finishing graduate school, I've barely written a word. When I come home, I turn on my laptop. Then I kick off my shoes, turn on the television, pour a glass of wine. From across the room, sprawled atop my sofa, I sneer at the humming computer. It's been so long since I've written something I love, I wonder if I still know how to do it.

"I believe you have entire year after graduating with an MFA to feel any guilt about not writing," a good friend and former classmate explained. "You can only stress yourself out after July."

I used to flit between boys, smiling at strangers and purring at handsome passerbys. Flirtation often developed to a date and eventually something more. I would rest my hand on his thigh as we sat side-by-side at a bar debating politics. While he slept peacefully through the night, I would press my lips to the nape of his neck, run my fingertips across the ridge of his spine. It's been so long since I've experienced this, I fear the unused side of my mattress is a full inch taller than the one I occupy. It's been so long that I can't even recall what a passionate kiss feels like.

"It'll happen when you least expect it," my gay friend said as he raised his champagne cocktail to his mouth. "Just continue being fabulous and one of those stupid straight boys will snatch you right up."

Last night I got home and didn't bother to turn on my computer. I didn't worry about writing the last three chapters of my novel. I didn't fret that no dates are planned for the immediate future. For the first time in a while, I stopped worrying about what I was missing. And anyway, it will all come full circle. Someday soon I'll write through the early morning, so excited about my creation that I'll ignore the changing verb tense or ticking clock. Someday soon I'll kiss a boy in my doorway and dismiss my fear that I'll turn my head the wrong way or clink my teeth against his. Someday soon, I say. And it'll be just like riding a bike.