Hey, I'm twenty-four now.
I used to bemoan getting older every year. Turning eighteen was especially traumatic because no one could sing "She's a dancing queen, young and sweet, only seventeen" about me anymore.
Since I had a kid, though, I don't really care that I'm twenty-two or twenty-three or twenty-four. I'm a mom, hence OLD. It's quite liberating, really. It's like I removed the bandaid of aging very quickly, on July 13, 1999.
For those that aren't on my notify list, I got a combo Christmas/birthday present from Fistula. It's the female version of the watch that I bought for him the first Christmas that we were romantically-linked, back in '96 (I think!). He's always said that one day he would get me the matching one, when he had the money. Strange then that he should pick this year, the least affluent year either of us has known, to buy it. Before Christmas he kept on saying that the gift he got me was really going to piss me off. "But will I like it?" I'd ask. "You're going to be soooo PISSED!" he'd reply, rubbing his hands with glee. "Then HOW is it a GIFT if it's going to make me ANGRY?!" I would want to know. "Yoooooouuuuuu'lllllll seeeeeeee!" he'd sing. It was annoying, I don't mind telling you. The reason he said I'd be pissed off was because we had made these strict Christmas budgets. We had allotted $100 for each other's gifts, which I had thought was a lot, considering the financial dire straits we were in at the time. Incidentally, I got him some pyjama pants, some tobacco for his pipe and this, well within the budget. So anyway ladies, do you think I was pissed? I was not. It didn't even occur to me to get mad about it, I was just so amazed to get such a nice thing. It really made me feel so appreciated and...stuff.
Other birthday lovelies include the following:
- getting dinner made for me (quesadillas, I think, gotta do something he knows or else we won't eat till midnight) and I think I'm going to go out and buy myself a trifle for dessert
- some very sweet emails and ecards, like the one below, which reminds me of the postcards in Griffin and Sabine
- all these nice birthday wishes. I must confess that I always thought these threads on bulletin boards were silly. But now that I have felt the love, and squealed like a pig, I think they're a marvelous idea.
- Fifty bucks from my dad, with which I want to buy maybe a nice big hardcover book of Frida Kahlo art. I was lying in bed the other night thinking I wanted to get that, but knowing I would never have fifty spare bucks for something so extravagant. Or I might get a subscription to a magazine, which is also something I probably wouldn't buy myself. Or I might blow it all on a fancy dinner at Carden Street Cafe.
In other, less self-absorbed news - who am I kidding? this whole website is self-absorbed - I started up yoga again. Last month, when I should have been registering for the new session of yoga, we didn't know if we could afford it, what with Fistula's impending unemployment and all, so I didn't sign up. Then, on Tuesday, I just showed up, hoping I could still get into the class. I couldn't. I was number eight on the waiting list and was told to go home and they would call me if enough people didn't show up in the first few weeks. Bolllocks to that, I said, and decided to wait for Guru, the instructor, and see what he had to say about it. As a die-hard member of the previous session's class and a frequent visitor in his home, I hoped he might pull a few strings. Okay, so I've only been to his house once, but still. I've been on a lot of waiting lists in my life and I've not once failed to get into the class within the first few meetings. Once I was number one hundred and something on a waiting list for a microbiology course and I still got in. According to my mother, I also have phenomenal luck when it comes to parking spots *shrugs shoulders and bat eyes*. Anyway, my instructor and his wife said "Pshaw, just sit in the first few classes, you'll get in eventually anyway!" My point exactly, but the City of Waterloo employee didn't see it that way. When the class was over I pulled my hood over my head as I walked out so she wouldn't see me.
I was so happy to be back in yoga. I noticed a sad deficiency in my flexibility, from not practicing for a month, but I was still ten times better than I was in September. I was able to gauge the difficulty of the positions by the amount of groans, yelps and "Call my chiropractor!"s going on around me, but they all seemed easy to me. In September I was one of the moaners. There's another guy in the class who is always in the front row with me, and who actually practices at home every day (?!?) and he went as far as to whisper to me "This is too easy!", so I'm comforted by the fact that there are people more obnoxious than me about.
Later...
I tried to post this earlier today but I couldn't get my FTP client to work for some reason. Anyway, I got two more birthday treats, so it's a good thing I didn't post it earlier! They were an impromptu birthday party with cake and balloons thrown by Mrs. and Mr. Neighbour and their daughters A-pie and Mutie-pie, AND a candy care package and mix tape from the wonderful, generous Miss Anna Sheftel! I'm eating my Toblerone and Pez as we speak. I've never had Pez before in my life, so it's quite exciting. Oh, and Marg called to ask if anyone had knocked on the door tonight. I told her no one had, and she said, mysteriously, "maybe tomorrow". Woohoo!
