40 Going on 12

Last night I was surrounded by the most amazing of friends, helping me celebrate my upcoming milestone birthday.

People brought cupcakes and presents, and one of my friends attached a mylar balloon to her gift. And there it stood, all night, like a beacon, drawing attention to my impending middle age and closeness to death, for all the bar to see.

One by one friends were handing me blue cocktails (and one fiery shot with a roasted marshmallow) until I couldn't see straight. I literally seemed to lose all of my faculties little by little, as would be expected of an old person. First to go was my speech (I was told by my sister that I had a stuttering problem that she never noticed before. Apparently I spent a lot of the evening going Ka Ka Ka, trying to spit out her name and not getting very far. Nice). Then went the ability to walk straight. Then I started dropping things, such as glasses..I watched them slip out of my hand and onto the floor, or in one case, on S&M's shoes...lovely Blue Hawaiian all over his Cole Haans...

Throughout the evening, I stared at that balloon, just floating up there, taunting me. Nyah Nyah it said. You are OLD.

I grabbed Akat and Kiki and told them the balloon needed to go. I just couldn't look at it anymore.

Akat had an idea. She checked around to make sure no one was paying attention, grabbed the balloon, and shoved Kiki and I out onto the sidewalk. She then proceeded to poke a hole in the balloon...and one by one, we sucked the helium out of it. In our Mickey Mouse voices we shouted, "Fuck forty! Fuck this balloon! Fuck everything!" and giggled like a gaggle of schoolchildren.

It was my first time "doing" helium. And it was, most def, the highlight of my night.