Reaping the rewards of August

Yesterday I broke my ghetto no-frills cell phone, so today I finally upgraded to a color phone! I now have web access, camera, and all those fancy extras on my cute little Samsung phone. I just hope it'll be sturdy enough. This birthday month is turning out to be a lot of fun firsts for me, including:

First color/camera/web-enabled phone
First NYC tv show taping
First spa appointment
First big big pop arena-style concert
First Vegas trip without any boys or family
First time I'll be jetsetting across 4+ different cities in one month

I don't always have good birthdays. One year, during college for my birthday, nobody I knew was in town. So I decided to get Chinese takeout and watch Forrest Gump in the theater by myself. As uplifting as the movie was supposed to be, I couldn't help but get depressed, sitting in a dark theater by myself. (The one other time I went to a movie by myself was when I was pissed at a live-in boyfriend and wanted to be by myself. Somehow that was more uplifting. I saw the John Waters film, Pecker.)

That wasn't the first birthday that I spent alone, without the hoopla, without as much as a call from anyone. It's just unfortunate for me that August is when everyone makes plans for vacation. (August babies, can you feel me?) So I've come to have low expectations for my birthday.

Luckily since then, I have built up a wide circle of wonderful friends, so there is at least someone who has made sure I had some healthy fun on my birthday, going out to karaoke and enjoying nice dinners and whatnot. Now that I think of it, maybe those other humbling, lonely birthdays are partly what has made me value and maintain various friendships over the years.

Just ask BK, tatertot, and CopyKat, who were there to witness me, in a happy drunken stupor, post-birthday-karaoke, a few years ago, when I rambled on about how wonderful each of my friends were. I went off about my loving little dog, about Grace's super stylish glasses, about Kate being an awesomely cool mom and how I wanted to be like that someday, blah blah blah!!! CopyKat took advantage of my incoherent state and had me play Britney's Dance Beat on her PS2, to entertain everyone else.

At least that's what BK and CopyKat told me happened, cuz I don't really remember.

At the same time, having such empowered, inspiring friends means they tend to be busy people with schedules that fill up. So this year, as I tried to assess who I could see for my birthday, I had a moment of paranoia that I'd be alone this year, because they ALL had plans scattered throughout the month.

But goddammit, I'm turning 30, so I'm going to make it work. This year, I'm going to thank my friends by bringing my birthday to them! Every weekend this month, I'll be in a different city. If you want to celebrate, hop on my Jetsetter's 30th Birthday Tour (like Paris Hilton, but slightly less ostentatious and with a little more chubb):

8/6 - 8/13 --Brooklyn and NYC, to see cousins, friends, David Letterman, and Conan O'Brien
8/14 dinner with friends in San Francisco
(then back to work in Sunnyvale)
8/19-8/22 --LA for a spa, dinner, and karaoke with friends
(then back to work in Sunnyvale)
8/26 - 8/28 --Las Vegas with coworkers to see Destiny's Child!

So I'll be happy and broke at the end of the month. No gifts please! Seriously. I have NO ROOM in my dinky-ass apartment. Sadly, I don't even use the super nice iPod much -- the one that everyone pitched in for me for a previous birthday! (Okay, I'm going to set up my speakers to work with it at home so I will eventually use it.) I'm just happy to be with my peeps.

I'm feeling good about 30. I don't even feel like it's some awful thing. I suppose it helps that my coworkers apparently think I look like this 16-year old Korean golfer, Michelle Wie. I don't really think I look like her but whatever, at least it means I look young. (Then again, I don't want to look like jailbait either!) Ironically she is 6-feet tall (I am a meager 5'3").

PLUS... I just found out today, that TK got us tickets to see Letterman, and guess who's going to be one of the guests? Michelle Wie! And it's on the lucky date, 8/8. Go figure.

I am only half-lucky for the Conan O'Brien show taping, on which Rob Schneider and Andre 3000 will be guests. Well at least TK and BK will be happy about that first guest.