I just remembered that, since I’ve been 22, I’ve puked every birthday celebration where I’ve turned an even number. Greeeat.
This may be the shortest entry I’ve had since 2004.
birthday
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I’ve spent the majority of my birthday at work today.
I think the best gift I had was that, for most of the day, none of my employees were here. I basically had a house music party in the newsroom.
I’m almost done with the inside pages I can do before layout and then I’ll probably do something spectacular like go to bed.
Don’t worry, I’m celebrating my birthday tomorrow night with some old and new friends. It’s going to be a small event though. Someone is going to be sorely missed, though.
I do need to make up for the low-key 10th anniversary of being legal on the 10 anniversary of being more legal in 2014.
I was born a month after my sister turned 14. My eldest nephew was born a month after I turned 14. I’m expecting to embark on something awesome in August.
The day itself was low key since it was on a Wednesday and Thursday is our layout day. I didn’t really want to do anything this year because, as the theme was this weekend with my friends, I’m getting old. I know, 27 isn’t that old but I can’t rage hardcore like, for example, in the first year of this blog.
On Friday, I was still camped out at work at 9 p.m. because it’s slowly becoming a hangout spot. It’s a little sad that some of us were hanging out there on a Friday but I like the idea of people starting to view the newsroom as not just a place where they work.
But I digress.
I got a text to go out to celebrate my birthday. It was the one thing I had been dreading. I cancelled my birthday plans in D.C. and had nothing scheduled beyond going to Jay’s wedding Saturday. In my mind, I may celebrate 30 but the era of week-long Elliott extravaganzas is over. I had fun, of course but, Saturday morning, I woke up with two hours to spare before the wedding and it was an effort.
On Saturday, I went to Jay’s wedding and the Alpha Class from my fraternity chapter was there. Friends and roommates since the first day in 2001, brothers since 2003. It was interesting to think that the table contained Second Floor North of Santoro Hall. It was hard to believe I’ve known them for nine years.
Before I went to college, someone told me that it would be there that I find the people who will be my friends for the rest of my life, the people that, no matter how long you all are apart, will instantly make everything seem like old times. Jay and I are in and around Richmond. Brandon and Rob will probably be in Hampton Roads for a bit. Dorian is thinking Texas. Pete could be anywhere in about a year with his doctorate. Jay is the first of us to get married. Although we have been spreading out, we have been there for all of our triumphs thus far and will be in the future. I have a few friends I have known for longer but looking back at our lives yesterday was incredible. At some point at the reception, I realized the six of us at that table had an unshakable bond since August 2001, one that went even beyond our fraternity. It caused us to be the founding class of our chapter. At some point, we truly became brothers. I guess it was what we always wanted to share.
Later on, Pete and I headed to a kickball field party in Hanover. Two of our other friends from college were there. Pete got to see my Richmond experience firsthand. It’s laid back. He thought I was joking when I told him that I sometimes go outside and wait for something to happen and it usually turns into something along the lines of “Hi, I don’t know you. Want a beer?” I mean, I dress like a 60-year-old man (I’m a day away from tucking in my shirt and wearing suspenders) and I have a hipster beard. I’m probably the less threatening person in a social situation full of strangers ever.
Again, it was a very relaxing night but it was in no way boring. I definitely lost my ability to spell. Shaunelle seemed to be amused at the English major losing his superpowers.
Today, I’m going to get around to cleaning my room and go see No BS play their first set in Hopewell. I’m kinda excited about that. I mean, Hopewell is this thing 20 miles away from the city where I work. I don’t have enough fingers to count the number of times I’ve had to tell people where it is (people have heard of it, of course … I say kepone or mention odors and suddenly it’s OH! THERE!). It’s just that my general happiness is directly proportional to the exposure No BS gets in the entire world. I’m fucking proud of Reggie. I can say I’ve known him since the first day of sixth grade, saw his love of music blossom and that he wrote one of my favorite songs. I love it when my friends kick ass.
As you all know, I always get introspective on my birthday. It’s when I sit for a minute to reflect on everything that has happened. I guess it is my version of searching for the meaning of life. I’m content with the answer to Why am I here? being This.
Once I make this a real website, I’m going to start doing pullout quotes.
I completely forgot to talk about my birthday weekend, part two. I don’t know how, especially since it followed tradition because, yet again, I puked when I turned an even number.
It wasn’t completely my fault, though — the shot I took went down the wrong pipe.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
I got down to my mom’s house about two hours before I was supposed to head down to Norfolk because I thought my celebration was Saturday and not Friday. I had to awkwardly excuse myself from the house not long before getting there and headed to Norfolk with my cheap bottle of bourbon (which I finally finished Thursday, which makes it the liter of booze I owned for the longest time before finishing). Anyway, over 10 of us were in Pete’s house where we pregamed. From there, we walked around the corner to all of the bars around ODU. At the first one, everyone got a good laugh at my expense.
The place was pretty much dead at first and we were about to leave. About 10 minutes before that because of compiling tabs and all, this Indian dude came in and started dancing outrageously. Apparently, he’s a fixture there. My spider sense was tingling but I was a captive. When everyone pretty much got moving, I was shoved back down into a chair, the DJ mentioned it was my birthday and, the next thing I knew, the Indian guy was dancing on me.
Did I mention that I hate all of my friends with a burning passion?
After that was over and I threatened bodily harm if I ever saw any of those pictures, we went to another bar where I had said puking. So I was in the middle of a beer and the shots came out. I noticed about a week before that, when my mouth is open, I automatically start breathing through it and figured that would be a problem along the line. There was a hesitation between open mouth and insert liquor so it became insert liquor into trachea.
I puked directly in front of the bar but no one in charge noticed. Since I didn’t puke from having too much to drink, I continued to do so after I could breathe again.
Although I wanted to go home that night, I got all of my drinks for free and, since so many of my friends were there, that was a lot of free drinks.
The next day, I dragged myself home, washed my car, took a nap and had my birthday dinner. The entire day, my mom commented on how skinny I’ve gotten and blamed it on my lack of front teeth. Actually, I’ve been eating more or less normally for the past few weeks but I just don’t eat as much as I did back at home and, since I don’t work in Petersburg anymore, I’m not constantly eating something all day at my desk. Also, as you may recall from my earlier posts, I’ve been walking a lot and, if not for the whole breaking my face on the inaugural ride, I’d be on a bike all the time too.
She also brought up the whole me not having a girlfriend thing again so I made one up for the moment just so I don’t have to hear about it but I’ll have to break up with this imaginary woman soon so I don’t have to bring her home or explain why there are no grandchildren yet. This situation could be remedied if a certain someone would believe that I think she is something special. But whatevs.
Anyway, all in all, other than the dude all up ons and the puking thing, those two weekends were pretty awesome and I’m glad I didn’t go out of my way to make my birthday an elaborate occasion again. But, like every year, I wonder how things will be in 2010. I’ve always been somewhere unexpected a year later. I guess I’ll be living somewhere else this time next year. If so, I want to be on the correct side of the river. I think I’m finally OK with living alone since I live somewhere where I have a rich social life. I’m still not doing as much as I hoped I would by living in Richmond but there’s the psychological barrier of the river.
But where I’m living next year is not a conversation for right now. I will say before I change subjects that I do like this whole having a real, live landlord thing. I definitely need to find someone who owns a building. I think I’ve talked to enough developers in the area to at least work out some sort of deal and I should probably get working on that. And the articles for Tuesday’s paper before I decide on if I want to go see fireworks or not. I have a standing invitation to Dogwood Dell and my brother Dan wants to do something but I haven’t heard back from him yet. I kinda what to lay low tonight because I don’t know how RVA gets on the Fourth. I guess there’s only one way to find out.
So my electric beard trimmer/shaver has died. Since I’m particular about who cuts my hair, I can’t get it cut until Friday. BUT MY BEARD IS DRIVING ME CRAZY! I WANT IT OFF MY FACE NOW.
I found out that my barber for when I’m guaranteed very, very quick service won’t be in till Friday. I didn’t realize that he pretty much worked only on Fridays because he father used to cut my hair before he died last year.
Anyway, I headed out to the barber shop, which is many fives of miles away from Hopewell in the village of Ettrick. OK, by many fives of miles, it’s maybe like 10. But I have to go through Prince George and either Petersburg or Colonial Heights to get there. I headed through Colonial Heights because both Best Buy and Target had on their Web sites that “Octahedron” by The Mars Volta on sale for $9.99. How did I forget that this album was coming out on my birthday? I literally dropped everything I was doing and headed over there to discover that the 10 buck price at Best Buy was Internet only. Plus shipping, most likely, it would be $11, $12, full price again. And people are wondering why CD sales are plummeting. I know I could have gotten the album on iTunes but I like using my paper money to buy a tangible disc with music on it. I also like ground up pieces of wood with ink on them. I know. I’m a dinosaur.
On the ride back, I decided to make it a round trip and head back through Petersburg. It was the sixth time I’d been back in that city since leaving the paper six months ago. It’s still amazing to see how much has changed — for the better — in that city. A stalled renovation project was underway again. North Sycamore Street actually looked charming. I forgot to roll my windows up and I got asked for change for the first time since about March when I forgot to roll up my windows before going down Eighth Street in Richmond near City Hall.
Three years. It’s so hard to believe that my life has been linked to there for three years. Although I’m in Richmond right now and, especially when I had a fully-functioning mouth, I came did things here often, my life is still the Tri-Cities.
For a split second, I considered going to Dinwiddie. I didn’t. I haven’t since the last time I had to go there for work in December. In a way, I feel like me not going there is for the best. I equated it to seeing an ex who left you and now is in an abusive relationship. I loved Dinwiddie but it’s over between us and nothing’s going to change that. DeWitt, McKenney, Darvills, Church Road, Poole Siding, Reams Station, Sutherland and Ford will just sit neglected except for in my mind.
But here we are: 2009. I first set foot here in 2006. I never thought I’d still be there three years later. Central Virginia has me hooked and I’ve decided that I’m going to lay low in Hopewell at least until the economy improves. In general, I don’t want to leave Richmond. That sound funny since even a year ago today, I was ready to Return to Hampton.
As I headed back to work, I couldn’t stop thinking about the three years. I’ve been down there over three years. I physically moved away one, twice if you count moving to Richmond, yet I’m still there. There have been some mental (and now physical) bumps and bruises in those three years but I’m still there. As I said when I was trying to claw my way out of the Tri-Cities, I still don’t get why I’m still there.
I guess the bigger question is exactly for what still being there is preparing me and my future synthetic teeth?
There’s only one way to find out.
Here goes Year 26.
And I’m still inexplicably sober.
For some damn reason “Mr. Loverman” has been stuck in my head. Although I think the last time I heard this song was 199-fucking-3. I wish no one was home right now because I’d totally blast this.
In other news, my cheek is all but completely healed so I can finally shave tomorrow or something. I have no idea how I was able to stand having a full beard all these years. I need this damn thing off my face. Additionally, my mouth is still a little tender in a couple places but my bottom lip is now normal sized, which is funny because now it looks abnormally small to me. It’s still numb in a few places but, every now and then, there’s slight tingly sensations as what I’m assuming some of the nerve endings come back online. I think I’ll never be able to open my mouth as wide as I did again because it now opens asymmetrically and that’s probably the fault of some internal scar tissue. I can sorta do a smiling action now but there’s some pain where my front teeth were when I try to do it.
As for my forehead — I shit you not ” it felt a little lumpy and it was kinda annoying, especially today. A tiny, tiny, tiny rock totally popped out of my face today out of a tiny hole. It was basically a piece of gravel that was too big to just be considered, well, dirt. The hole bled for like two seconds and you can’t even see where it was now. If it magically turns the correct color before Friday night and I get fake front teeth when I do to the dentist Wednesday, I seriously might be able to pull this off when I see my mom this weekend. I effectively made a full recovery in less than three weeks. And my face was fuuuucked uuuuuup when this all happened.
Speaking of fucked up, I celebrated my birthday this past weekend, as you all should know. I started Friday when I got home and realized I thawed out spare ribs by accident. Ribs and corn on the cob are probably two things I cannot eat until I get my permanent fake front teeth (which might be my only problem since I think my mom is cooking that for my birthday dinner although, even if I had teeth, I wouldn’t want any Saturday because I’m not in a corn mood). As I thought about what I could possibly eat, I started drinking bourbon. Then I had beer. Then I went to a house party and had more beer. Then we went to Mojo’s and then we got donuts and I passed out on Pat Kane’s couch.
I was a little hungover Saturday afternoon when I rolled off the couch and that was a little disappointing because, a few months ago, what I had would have been just getting started.
As I got ready for Saturday night, I didn’t even touch the bourbon but I was drinking water like it was going out of style.
By the time Ashie and Kenny got over, I had completely recovered and it was time to start again. I remembered when that used to be fun. Now I was like, oh dear Lord.
Three beers at Mojo’s one at Baja, a beer and four horsemen at the Border. I almost couldn’t do the last one. I passed out for about 14 hours.
I believe I spent more time asleep between 3 a.m. Sunday and 5 a.m. Monday when I woke up, wrote three newspaper articles and headed into work.
My actual birthday is in roughly five hours. I have to see the governor at 10 a.m. tomorrow. I know my tolerance is down. Although I didn’t puke this year on my birthday so far and I kinda want to celebrate again tonight just because it’s official, I really, really wouldn’t mind if I never had another drink.
Really.
As I said a while back, at some point, I realized that I don’t need it. The reasons for me constantly getting shitfaced have more or less gone. The thrill of being able to get it and drink it in defiance of a dry campus is gone. The novelty of living off campus, being of age and drinking as much as I wanted whenever I want is gone. The stress of class is gone. The stress of pretending that I’m not a complete wreck because both my grandmother and my sister Theresa having terminal diseases is gone. The stress of still crashing and burning in class although I was trying really hard to ignore the aforementioned sentence is gone. The stress of being unemployed is gone. The joy of having my first real job is gone. The stress of my first real job is gone. The stress of having to work out having a positive balance in my bank account every 29 days so I can keep my car and my apartment is gone. The initial joy of having a new job and employees is gone.
I mean, I’m not saying I’m going to stop drinking but it used to be an event, an escape or, when my week didn’t suck ass, a reward. Other than this past weekend, it’s just been an accessory, something to do with my hands while at a party. As of late, I’ve been sipping one tallboy can for nearly too long for the liquid inside to be palatable once I got to the dregs.
That said, I am glad I’ve had sober times with many of my friends. I look at my phone and, although we have “remember that time when you were wasted?” stories that’s not all we have. I would be having a lonely life right now if that were the case. Despite the stereotype, I have my fraternity to thank for that.
It’s still a strange feeling though. If not for my birthday, I would have been able to count on one hand how many drinks I had in the past month. It feels strange because it doesn’t. It feels even stranger that when I got pissed off at the end of last month, I bought a bicycle instead of vodka and being sober is what caused me to lose my teeth. At face value that says that I should have just bought the vodka. Instead, it shows me that I’ve realized that alcohol is not the cause and solution of every problem.
But I still want a drink for my birthday. Because it’s my birthday. But there’s nothing stopping me from doing it right now except for me. I don’t want to because I don’t want to; I want to because society says I should.
I guess we’ll see.
I purposely placed my computer in front of the bourbon over an hour ago, just to see what would happen. It’s still where I put it Friday night.
I want Shabba Ranks out of my head.
I haven’t really done anything noteworthy in a while. I get up in the morning, go to work, do nothing exactly exciting at work then go home and eat dinner. My grand “I have a bike again and will do all sorts of awesome things since I don’t have to use my car” entry turned into the grand “I broke out five teeth and may have totally lost the ability to open my mouth very wide or smile forever” entry. (I’m not joking. My mouth does the wrong things when I try to smile and show what’s left of my teeth. Then again, my mouth isn’t fully healed so I might be able to do both later. I hope so).
Along with the past two weekends consisting of me being a bit of a recluse, I haven’t done much then either. One thing that has happened is that I spend entirely too much time on the computer. In fact, I should be writing two articles for work now but I’m doing this instead. And, when I get some free time, I have work for my fraternity to do on my computer as well. I plan on getting back off this damn thing soon, especially on the weekends.
And that starts this weekend, the first phase of my celebration of my 26th year. If you’re going to be in Richmond Saturday night at 10 p.m. come to Mojo’s at Laurel and Cary and wish me a happy birthday. If you have my contact information call me up before because there will be pregaming and I’m at least throwing my own after party with whatever tasty beverage I wind up going home with Friday night.
I promise the most fun I can possibly have with five less teeth.
I am officially excited.
Expect a chronicle later. Yeah, I know my number of entries have fallen off dramatically and I just said that. Quality over quantity, people. I’m not writing any of this for you anyway … although I just invited the world to my birthday party. Then again, I’m not expecting anyone I haven’t told to come already to show up because this was on teh interwebs and it’s not like I’m offering anything except for the privilege of you getting me a drink because it’s almost my birthday. … But we’ll see how that goes since it’s been a bit since I’ve drank.
I guess I should actually do the work I’ve been ignoring for the past two hours.
Our story begins Thursday night. Pat, Court and I headed out to Richmond because it would be today, Wednesday, before I was truly back in the greater Richmond area. We had dinner at the Village Café and then a few went to Cous Cous before having a few more heading back to their apartment. At about 5 a.m., I realized it was incredibly late and slept on the couch.
At about 10 a.m., Pat had an assignment and, since I was up and needed to get on the road, I pulled myself off of their couch and headed home to change. I ended up sitting/lying around my house for a few hours before I dragged myself into work to write my article for Sunday. I was going to write another article but, obviously, I was exhausted. I was so exhausted, in fact, I left my cell phone on my desk and didn’t realize until I got to about New Kent County.
I arrived at the Tau Delt House at about 6 p.m. and wanted to go to sleep. I probably would have if I didn’t get an energy drink. I made it through the party and fell asleep around 3 a.m. in a makeshift bed constructed out of two chairs. If anything, my fraternity has taught me to sleep in any situation. I woke up seven hours later to help paint several walls in our chapter house before heading to a small party another one of my friends, Matt, was having. That led to an invite to the Outer Banks in August, which I’ll probably use my last two vacation days to do unless I have to be in Newport News around then (which is the reason why I’m not going to my fraternity convention).
On Sunday, I headed to my mom’s house, where I discovered that C-Dubs called my mom to let her know that I wasn’t dead as far as she knew and I just left my phone on my desk. My mom wasn’t concerned but Shonda kept calling my phone to let her uncle know what Nana was making for his birthday cookout. I’m waiting for my mom to ask me who Courtney is. At least she isn’t among those who think that — among Patrick, Courtney and me — at least two of us are having sex together. I should totally move in with them and create a reality show based on “Three’s Company.”
My mom cooked on the grill for my birthday. I lit the grill this time so our dinner wouldn’t catch fire. I got one of the four solid presents I managed to get this weekend, the copier-printer-scanner-fax, and took my sister’s kids to Buckroe Beach. After that, through struggling to get facebook and calling people whose numbers I knew by heart, did a smashing job of contacting people and ensuring I was with some friends that midnight when I officially turned 25. My physical turning 25 was a low-key affair with Amber-Formerly-In-Chief, Mal and Megan. They all were a little out of it for various and sundry reasons but I was OK with that. An interesting aspect of that night was eventually realizing that the occupants of the booth next to us included at least two transvestites, one of whom was angry that she was barred from going to the ladies room at some other place at one point.
Monday, in a way, was the main event. I got up around 10 a.m. and headed to Christopher Newport University, that lavish monstrosity that used to be my small college just two years ago. It was Setting Sail, which is effectively the pre-freshman orientation. Upon seeing this, I half expected not to see Angela at all because the admissions office handles this in part. I ran into her at the parking lot and she let me know she would be back at her desk in a few minutes.
I talked to the few people who are left from my time in the office and headed up to the registrar’s to change my name on my transcript and then have a copy sent home and to [ignore that the school system was previously named in this entry!]. I then dropped off a recommendation form in Dr. Lee’s box, sent him an e-mail to let him know it was in his box and headed back to admissions. Angela is like a second mom to me and it always makes me happy to visit her and see how proud she is of me. She wrote a glowing recommendation and faxed it to the school system.
After that, I headed to the eye doctor because this was the first time in two years that I could at least pretend to be able to afford to get my eyes examined. My new contacts rectify how much downhill my vision has gone as I wore glasses but my eyes are still adjusting to them. It reminds me of seventh grade when I first got them and, although I could see a lot better, I couldn’t see. Things get better with each passing day but, I can tell you, after having dinner and dessert with Suzanne and Mandy (who gave me back my manuscript so I can do some ground work on the final draft whilst I wait for at least Amber-Formerly-In-Chief’s edits), driving down Interstates 64 and 95 at night was an adventure.
After stopping at Pat and C-Dubs’, where I met Ma-Dubs (Pa-Dubs was already asleep), I grabbed my cell phone, coordinated yesterday with Bill and planned on sleeping in until it was time to head to Bill’s house.
Of course my mom woke me up early to ask a silly question.
Bill and I picked up Dan Moore and headed up to D.C. for the Nationals-Angels game. I don’t really watch baseball but I could get into it. Nationals Stadium, in the Navy Yard, apparently nostril raped the favorite part of the city of many of my friends. In front of the stadium will be some hyper-trendy apartments and lofts. I can’t wait to read something about how some of them are appalled that the city is letting those mouth breathers walked down their street on their way to that loud base-balled sport-club-thingie. Although the stadium was huge, I expected it to be bigger. The game was shorter than the Hopewell City Council meeting that was going on at the same time. Nothing will change my mind about the superiority of the New York City Subway over the D.C. Metro. Seeing that I needed to be in Dinwiddie first thing in the morning, I fell asleep on the way back.
As you can see, I’m here, writing an entry. I didn’t wake up in time. I’ll just call the commonwealth’s attorney when I get to work around noon.
All in all, I have to say this was quite possibly the best birthday ever. And now I have to go back to work. Boo.
Before I headed out with Bill and Dan, I got a call from the school system. After they get my transcript and review it, the interview process will begin. They should have gotten it today. I had a dream last night that they called today to retract that due to the F I couldn’t get off my transcript and they didn’t want to hear the reason why I failed that class.
I smiled today when I passed the tree in this userpic.
Since April, really since early 2005, I have been on Route 15 a lot. In the same amount of time, Route 17 between Harwood’s Mill Reservoir and Horne’s Restaurant has all but become memory.
The reason for my taking Route 15 have been myriad. Sometimes, it’s to avoid the New Jersey Turnpike. Sometimes it’s on the way to points north. Two of the trips dealt with Fred.
Yet, despite, exempli gratia, Fred, it is uncertain how much longer this route will be the one I know like the back of my hand.
As much as I would like to — not exactly settle but — not move for the eighth year in a row, I most likely will. Fred’s probably moving by the time our lease is up. I don’t truly have a reason to stay in Virginia (well, I do but I don’t) so, who knows, I might just need a new roommate … I don’t know who that may be.
It’s another year. I’m 24. More miles on Route 15.
This was a long, strange vacation. I just got back from Rochester. I spent my actual birthday hungover. I didn’t personally get to see Niagara Falls. I saw Lake Ontario. It looks like dirty dishwater.
I have one more day to go. I really needed this.
Once again, tomorrow will be as random as today and, as to where I’ll spend my 25th birthday and where I will call home when it’s all said and done is anyone’s guess.
Who knows — maybe I’ll be seeing more of Route 15.
Goodnight and thanks for the birthday wishes.
