The New 52 – 2024 Birthday Week!
It’s my first day back to work after almost a week off for my birthday, and… I’m easing back into it, I guess. I always take some time off work for my birthday and try to relax, at the least, and maybe do something fun and special. Even if that special thing is just: not going to work!
It Begins…
Technically, “birthday time” was triggered early by my team lead at work. We aren’t really a “throw party” kind of team, especially since we’re all remote, but it was nice to get the early wishes. But I dutifully closed out my tasks and left instructions for anything while I was gone, and then didn’t do much that night aside from my nails.
I was feeling the Friday 13th, 13×4=52, 52 cards in a deck, etc. kind of vibe so red and black. And I didn’t really do too much that evening aside from enjoying the fact that I didn’t have to get up for work in the morning. Although, I have to admit that “at my age” my sleep/wake times are pretty much set. So even if I’m not working, I’m still up early for a walk, or an in bed phone-scroll, and still go to bed relatively around the same time.
T minus 1 day…
So I’m off, but I don’t get too wild with it… usually. Thursday was still that first pleasant “I’m off work and don’t have to do a gosh darned thing!” feeling. I got up and did my walk, but took a different route and drew some inspiration from it. My usual “morning walk” photos, but the route took me past a coffee place I’ve been curious about for ages, but never went because I usually make my own coffee at home.
Absolutely worth it to experience a new place, right down the road, for the first time. And then more “off” time. I puttered around the house, did some chores, spent more time in bed, did some reading. My partner was visiting for the weekend, so there was some tidying up, but no real pressure about it, and I discovered possible plans for the weekend while also making plans to visit our local speakeasy that night before meeting them at the train station.
While I don’t have many goals for a birthday weekend, moments of getting nicely toasted are definitely among them. And I hadn’t been to the speakeasy for a year, since my last birthday when I admittedly had too much and for a moment sort of forgot where I lived after leaving. I behaved a bit better this time, actually got friendly conversation with the bartenders and promised myself that I’d visit again soon.
Happy Birthday to Me!
Finally it was the day, my birthday, 52 years old, somehow still here, and… not bad looking, if I do say so myself.
It’s an odd thing that I’ve talked to other queer people about, when it comes to aging. While we all have our own take on how we approach it, a large number of us keep a sort of background awareness of the fact that we didn’t think we’d make it to older ages, because of various factors.
Myself, I take it for granted now, being in remission, but there have been several dodged bullets and lucky happenstances to get me where I am today. Generally able to take care of myself, live and thrive. I certainly don’t think of myself as “old” even if I know I’m quite firmly “middle aged”.
I won’t bring up the Wilford Brimley or “Golden Girls” conversation again, but our concept of aging has really changed what we think of as “old” especially in a lot of cases where, we just can’t afford to stop working, and there are no (financial security) laurels to rest on.
But enough about all that, I had things to do, friends to see, and thanks to a well-targeted Instagram ad, dancing to do!
This day had everything! (a la Stefon) A surprise gift, which actually was something I wouldn’t have asked for, but really appreciated. Then lunch out with friends at an Afghan place. Dinner in the neighborhood with a pre-dancing cocktail. And then heading out for “a night out”, which is something I haven’t done in a long while.
Honestly, the biggest struggle was trying to stay awake up to the point of going out. Ignoring the “why don’t we just call it a night?” inner voices were tough, but I did manage it and had an ok time. I’m grateful we took earplugs because my ears would have been suffering. The night was advertised as “Donna vs. Diana” a disco inspired party, and the word “inspired” was doing some heavy lifting.
The music wasn’t bad, it veered from disco to pop to new wave, but I confess I’d have been happier if it had stayed firmly in disco the entire night. I’d have also liked it if the crowd were more queer, but the venue isn’t typically a gay one, so what can you do? We had some fun dancing, with a few breaks on their rooftop deck, and called it a night right about when a “dance circle” broke out next to us, that was all circle and very little dancing, but was taking up a lot of space on the not-large dance floor.
That night after getting home, though? I slept the sleep of the just and the dead. I wasn’t worn out and could have kept dancing, but it was nearly 3 hours after my usual bedtime, and I definitely didn’t wake up at my usual time.
Birthday Weekend!
After a walk for coffee and some more time to rest and luxuriate (and maybe stretch a bit), we walked to a new place for a weekend tradition, birthday or otherwise, Saturday brunch. Because I have my priorities! It’s in a great location, we sat in the window and got a nice view of busy Saturday folks while we dished and dined.
The place is Japanese/French fusion and their brunch offerings were lovely as well as having sashimi and maki rolls available. From what I could overhear, it was perhaps their second or third week being open for brunch, which explained why the place was empty. Not that I mind being one of a few tables in a restaurant, but I do have a little bit of guilt for making staff go through the motions to serve one table.
A little surprise was that they brought out a birthday crème brûlée! I wondered how they knew, but realized that since we used OpenTable, it’s probably in my profile, so we got a little sweet treat before moving on for another walk over to Dupont Circle, where we did a few shopping stops and then grabbed a final cocktail at one of our old haunts.
It honestly didn’t have the same feeling as it did pre-pandemic, but honestly, that was a big reason behind my trying to make plans and head out and do stuff over the weekend. I’ve spent so much time being safe at home, isolating from the world (and possible infection), and my memories of going out and having fun are firmly established. But I’m very aware that they are memories, and I wanted to see what it felt like now to get out about and visit places.
Overall? It’s still fun, but also still weird. Food and drink at new places is still cute, but it’s the older haunts, the places where I once was more of a regular but have now been gone for 3-4 years, and I guess I got used to the friendlier treatment. Not special, just friendly. There’s a nice feeling in being recognized when you go to your regular spot. And it’s palpable when that goes away.
After the weekend, I had a few more days off, and enjoyed taking it easy. I had stocked up on a bit of Prosecco ahead of time, so there was no shortage of celebratory sips. There was a charity TTRPG and a Logitech G co-stream. I begrudgingly got myself used to the fact that I was going to have to go back to work and resume the grind.
Until next year…
But I also had to admit that while I enjoy time off, too much unstructured time off isn’t good for me. Intrusive thoughts aside, I feel like I’m wasting the time. Which isn’t really true, but it’s hard not to think, “I have time off, I should be doing something,” in between realizing that doing nothing is sometimes precisely the point of having time off.
One topic of conversation over the weekend was whether I had any plans for the next year, and I really don’t have anything special in mind. Continue surviving, mainly. Work is good, life is good, perhaps I’ll get a wild idea between now and 53, but for now I’m pretty good.
I have friends to hang out with both here and across the globe, even though I was off social media for a few days, I was overwhelmed by everyone’s kind words and replies to my birthday tweets. I think I even saw a “urbanbohemian appreciation thread” in there somewhere, which was really nice. I don’t know what this year will bring, but I hope it brings more ups than downs.
Thanks for reading this far and sticking with me, and thank you for the birthday wishes. Let’s take one more trip around the sun and see how it goes! 💖
