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Dec. 11th, 2013 08:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsFor December 11th, enleve asked me about my favorite birthday celebrations and activities. I am actually not much of a birthday-er! (For me. Other people's birthdays are great, and should absolutely be celebrated with pomp and circumstance, although I am epically bad about remembering them and apologize in advance to everyone whose birthdays I will forget over the next year.)
I mean, I have no negative feelings tied up in birthdays -- growing older is great! I am super looking forward to being old and having giant bushy white eyebrows like Merriman Lyon's, it is a dream of mine -- and it is absolutely lovely when people remember my birthday and take the time to wish me a happy one, but I never particularly think to plan anything really dramatic for it. I never throw parties; throwing a party seems to me like the worst and most stressful way to spend any day! You worry about who to invite, and then you worry about whether people will come, and then once they're there you spend the whole time worrying if everyone is having a good time. I hate being the one who has to be responsible for everyone having a good time! It is hard enough to be responsible for myself having a good time.
The past few yearsgenarti has usually come down to visit over the nearest convenient weekend to my birthday, and we have done such exciting things as visit museums and liveblog anime and all the generally delightful sorts of things we usually do when Gen comes to visit, which is pretty much every couple months. So that's like having a birthday every couple months, I suppose! And sometimes I will go out for dinner with roommates or drinks with my grad school cohort on the actual day of my birthday - usually someone else besides me makes that decision, but, I mean, it's a great decision! just making that decision myself feels too much like planning a party and making a fuss - and sometimes, like this past year, I will spend it running around doing twelve other things and not remember it's my birthday until one of my parents calls me.
I will tell you one great birthday though, was the birthday last year when I went up to Boston to see the ballet and a bunch of amazing people surprised me with a Kindle. That is one of the best things that's ever happened to me -- not because of the Kindle itself so much (although the Kindle is GREAT) but because, like, wow, people thought to do something like that for me! WHAT. HOW. How do I know such great people, how is it that such great people think I'm worth the time to plan something like that, how is that even possible!
Oh, also another thing I love doing on my birthday is singing "remember, remember the fifth of November, GUNPOWDER, TREASON AND PLOT!!!" Also before my birthday. As many times leading up to my birthday as possible. Because I feel, personally, that if you happen to be born on a blood-and-thunder holiday with its OWN SONG, you have a real responsibility to embrace that.
One thing I would love to do on a future birthday would be to spend it in the UK and see the Guy Fawkes Day fireworks and CLAIM THEM AS MY OWN.
enleve asked me about my favorite birthday celebrations and activities. I am actually not much of a birthday-er! (For me. Other people's birthdays are great, and should absolutely be celebrated with pomp and circumstance, although I am epically bad about remembering them and apologize in advance to everyone whose birthdays I will forget over the next year.) I mean, I have no negative feelings tied up in birthdays -- growing older is great! I am super looking forward to being old and having giant bushy white eyebrows like Merriman Lyon's, it is a dream of mine -- and it is absolutely lovely when people remember my birthday and take the time to wish me a happy one, but I never particularly think to plan anything really dramatic for it. I never throw parties; throwing a party seems to me like the worst and most stressful way to spend any day! You worry about who to invite, and then you worry about whether people will come, and then once they're there you spend the whole time worrying if everyone is having a good time. I hate being the one who has to be responsible for everyone having a good time! It is hard enough to be responsible for myself having a good time.
The past few years
genarti has usually come down to visit over the nearest convenient weekend to my birthday, and we have done such exciting things as visit museums and liveblog anime and all the generally delightful sorts of things we usually do when Gen comes to visit, which is pretty much every couple months. So that's like having a birthday every couple months, I suppose! And sometimes I will go out for dinner with roommates or drinks with my grad school cohort on the actual day of my birthday - usually someone else besides me makes that decision, but, I mean, it's a great decision! just making that decision myself feels too much like planning a party and making a fuss - and sometimes, like this past year, I will spend it running around doing twelve other things and not remember it's my birthday until one of my parents calls me. I will tell you one great birthday though, was the birthday last year when I went up to Boston to see the ballet and a bunch of amazing people surprised me with a Kindle. That is one of the best things that's ever happened to me -- not because of the Kindle itself so much (although the Kindle is GREAT) but because, like, wow, people thought to do something like that for me! WHAT. HOW. How do I know such great people, how is it that such great people think I'm worth the time to plan something like that, how is that even possible!
Oh, also another thing I love doing on my birthday is singing "remember, remember the fifth of November, GUNPOWDER, TREASON AND PLOT!!!" Also before my birthday. As many times leading up to my birthday as possible. Because I feel, personally, that if you happen to be born on a blood-and-thunder holiday with its OWN SONG, you have a real responsibility to embrace that.
One thing I would love to do on a future birthday would be to spend it in the UK and see the Guy Fawkes Day fireworks and CLAIM THEM AS MY OWN.
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Date: 2013-12-12 10:32 am (UTC)/random detail
The fireworks are pretty good though!
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Date: 2013-12-13 03:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-12 05:17 pm (UTC)You are a person who makes me think, "I must be doing something right to have friends who are as awesome as this."
Also I am with you on the whole thing with birthdays being a thing that happens, but not a big deal. More like, "oh yeah, my birthday. Well, let's get dinner or something." And yeah, I have a tendency to be less remember-ful about them in general than I think the norm. Oops? But y'know, awesome friends are awesome, regardless of what date it is. :P
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Date: 2013-12-13 03:11 am (UTC)