Back to Earth

birthday girl 2
Originally uploaded by mygothlaundry

I have the best friends on planet Earth. Yesterday, my friends Z & H threw a lovely little party for my birthday, featuring amazing food, lots of drinks, and fabulous presents. J & J & K & C & A & Z & H's neighbor C were all there and even young M put in an appearance for a little while. It was lovely and exactly what the doctor ordered; a good time was had by all. And I got an amazing silver ring made by J's cousin L, a beautiful little ceramic planter full of hens & chicks made by the other J, Amy Sedaris' party book and a bar of beautiful smelling soap that looks exactly like a Duplo block from Z & H, a bottle of good wine and flowers from C, and, in the morning before the party, when A & young M & A's good friends C & M took me out to brunch, a camera bag from young M and a wide assortment of nifty things from the Family Dollar from A. My friend S, who's out of town, left a nifty gifty bag for me too, featuring a giant fake sunflower, the new James McMurtry CD and a Breeders CD. My mother, bless her, gave me money; my brother, bless him, sent an Amazon gift certificate and my coworkers, bless them, produced not only a chocolate ice cream cake but also a gift card from Michael's Crafts. And, in what was the hit of the party, J gave me a truly remarkable UFO Flashing hot pink light up Chinese whatever the hell it is (the label proudly notes that it files up to 100 feet, which is handy, because you never know when you're going to need some serious heavy duty long distance filing) purchased from that emporium of the wonderful, BJs gas station & kwikee mart. So I raked in the loot and, more importantly, raked in a lot of love and good fellowship. I am seriously, genuinely, totally blessed and thank you all.

I'm off work today; sitting here and contemplating my return to planet earth. Being both dumped and having your birthday are, of course, the best excuses to drink to excess known to humankind, so I spent the last week doing that in spades. Now, though, it's time to start putting myself back together, always kind of a daunting prospect. There's a long list of chores to attend to, including mowing the lawn, switching the closet over to the summer clothes, cleaning the house, potting all the plants I bought last week, watering the garden, going to the laundromat and so on. Naturally, it's 11:30 and I haven't started any of that yet; in fact, I'm still in my pajamas drinking coffee and trying to figure out just how it is that I inevitably end up mired in psycho drama. I swear I have the best intentions in the world to live a quiet, admirable, drama free life but somehow, things always get out of hand. Well. The only thing I can do about it is try to start over again, so here we go, another year older and launched back into the workaday, normal life world.