you're alright, birthday. you're alright.

Before college, I'd always built up my birthday as this one shining day in a sea of ordinary days on which you're allowed to believe in this fantasy that the whole world revolves around you. My best friends and I used to lavish each other with attention on each others' birthdays. But when I got to college, my social network shrank, and my birthday became more insignificant. And then junior year happened. That year, I got in a fight with my housemates (read: only friends) around my birthday and almost all of them proceeded to not only not acknowledge my the occasion, but also basically ignore my existence for most of the day.

So on my 21st birthday, of all days, I had never felt more alone. My boyfriend was backpacking in Europe without a cell phone, my best friends were in separate states, and the people I lived with hated me. I decided to make my own happiness that day -- I got myself out of the house and went shopping alone and blasted music with the windows down and gorged myself on a Venti Mocha Chip frappuccino (Venti! Who needs that much frozen cappuccino? Who?!). My parents and sister came to visit and take me out to dinner. But all-in-all, it was one of my worst moments. At 20, I had never known that the universe could be that cruel. A lot has changed in 3 years, but the memory still stings. And I'm still working on allowing myself to be excited and happy on my birthday.

This year was a good case for the "Birthdays Rock!" side of the debate. After the Dead Baby Bunny incident, things looked up. I had a day off from work, so that was a plus from the start. I spent almost my whole day tinkering around on this blog, and I joined 20sb and went a little forum-happy. I ate a sandwich and a chocolate muffin. I made some plans to hang out with some of my friends from Ye Olde College Days. I got sucked into a marathon of The Hills. Oh! And my best friend Lindsay called me and had her entire class of first-graders sing "Happy Birthday" to me (complete with "cha-cha-CHA"s). It was pretty much the best thing ever.

Then my boyfriend Matt showed up with an arsenal of geeky presents: a PS2 and like 6 editions of Final Fantasy; Super Mario Bros Wii; and the piece de resistance: my very own factory-sealed limited-release Lord of the Rings extended edition DVD box set. There are only 1,000 of these in the whole world and I have no idea how he found one because I assumed they had all been sold back in like 2003 or whenever they were released. Since Matt already has his own copy, we're going to continue watching those and just keep this one forever unopened and maybe displayed in its own back-lit case or something. Because we are That Kind of Nerd. And we went out to dinner and had the most epic Peking duck and fried rice.

Unfortunately, I fell asleep at like 9 PM because I didn't get any sleep the previous night and when I woke up at 5:50 AM, Matt was gone and I still had my nice dress on and Mario was still on my TV bobbing from side to side and shouting "Let's-a go!" at me.

Today the festivities continue. Matt's got this whole day in Philly planned for us, and later tonight we're getting together with friends to maybe play video games or maybe just watch Serenity for the 90th time.

Like I said. That Kind of Nerd.