What About My Birthday?

Well, my responsibilities as a parent and the threat of severe weather plus tornadoes has kind of put a damper on my birthday week.  Yes, you read that right--birthday WEEK!  I still haven't attended a yoga class this week.  I had to work the morning of the free meditation class, and the movie/plus music I had planned to attend tonight in the park got cancelled (see first sentence above).

Summer birthdays are always a little problematic.  When I was a kid, it meant I didn't get recognized on  a school day.  It often meant I was visiting my grandmother in Utah on my birthday (which actually meant an awesome cake from Roe's Bake Shoppe in Payson); it meant friends at home were often on vacation.

The most beautiful cakes in the world.  Look at those daffodils!

I'm a Leo (like Mick Jagger--whose 69th bday is today--and Madonna!) so I've always wanted to celebrate it in a big way, and well into adulthood and now into my Gen X middle age, I've tried to mark it in ways that felt meaningful and significant. I actually learned this from my friend Jan S.  Back in 1989, she threw a small party for herself and served two kinds of homemade cakes:  one of them a cheesecake.  This was a revelation to me, and incredibly touching.  I remember her saying, "I realized that no one cared about my birthday as much as I do, so if I wanted a party, I had to throw one for myself."

Some birthdays are better than others.  Last year's was not so good.  I ended up doing something I thought would be easier for the kids, when all I really wanted to do was go to the movies and watch the Bill Cunningham documentary.  I did, however, go to the Momofuku Noodle Bar last year which was super fun, and we ended up getting caught in a downpour on our way home.  Sometimes my children are cranky on my birthday and are not feeling generous.  A few years ago, they were horrified that I insisted on riding the carousel in Bryant Park with them on my birthday.  Sometimes it's hard to share my birthday with my family who never--there's no way they can--feel as profoundly about my birthday as I do.

My best birthday was a surprise birthday party held in Salt Lake City on my 42nd birthday.  Lara was there.  It still ranks as one of the best nights of my life.

So, as this year's birthday looms, I'm not sure what to do for it.  I'm sad that I'm so far away from my friends in the west, people who have been long meaningful for me.  Sigh.

What did you do on your birthday this year?  What will you do?

Anyway, here's today's birthday boy, Mick.  This video's from my favorite Rolling Stone era:  early '70s Exile on Main Street:
  And Lara, I forgot to acknowledge another July birthday sister this month. My screwed-up, tight place girl, Courtney turned 48 on July 9:

I Don't Know What to Wear

Courtney Love looking unusually pulled together at her recent art opening.

 For the past few days my morning/afternoon pages for our Artist's Way experiment have been about clothes.  I've written about skirts, slips, seams, over-stitching, fabric, trimmings, bodices and shapes.  I can't seem to stop, which is ironic, because I don't know what to wear as a middle-aged Girl in a Tight Place.

I seem to be in a profound fashion crisis.  Yes, that's what it is.

So please tell me what you are wearing?

The thing I'm most afraid of right now is dressing too young for my age, which I could do very VERY easily.  But what does that mean?  Skinny jeans?--which is what I'm wearing right now? Tank tops and tee shirts, which my drawers are full of?  Dresses which I still pick up at stores that girls young enough to be my daughter shop at?

When I think of what I might want to look like I think of the following gals:  Courtney Love (who is ten days older than me), Kim Gordon from the now defunct(?) Sonic Youth (who is 11 years older than me), and maybe even Michelle Obama (who is seven months older than me, although she's a little mainstream).  They all look really super great, right?  Right?  (Although, Courtney often appears in public looking disappointingly matronly.)

Of course, they all have access to designers that I don't have access to (although Shelley and I did watch Kim Gordon try on coats once in the lower Broadway H&M).  How do I compete with Mrs. O?

So I'm not sure what to do as a gal on a budget.  What's totally inappropriate for me to wear?

What are you wearing again?

No minis over 35??  But here's Kim Gordon in 2009!

Michelle O in Michael Kors

I especially the flamboyance of these two:  the rainbow ribbing, short seersucker shorts.  

The lime tie.

Making it Work: Courtney Love and the The Babys on Valentine's Day

Before Eve Ensler made it cool (and I hope you took a look at yesterday's post on this), Valentine's Day was painful for me from my teens into my 20s.   I was perpetually boyfriendless and stupidly bitter about it. In college--at BYU--I remember cutting withered hearts out of black construction paper and giving them to my peers on campus, who were alternately amused and confused.  I guess this was far better than cutting myself.

BYU was a place where chaste pre-marital coupling happened often and quickly--engagements were short, and weddings ubiquitous.  Even in the late '80s, to graduate single and uncommitted was still a tad edgy--but I finally learned to embrace this and flaunt it when I, myself, graduated single at 23.

And that's another story.

Once I met my future spouse, Valentine's Days were often just awkward, both of us buckling under its pressure.

Now that I'm older I've decided I really love the aesthetic, and have embraced it like a kid, if only for the art and chocolate.

Here are the pros and cons of the day as I see them:

Cons:

1.  Jacked--up Vday menus.  (Relatedly, crowded restaurants full of corny couples.)
2.  Corporate Vday cards and their nauseous sentiments.
3.  Red roses.  (I can't stand them--particularly the way the bodegas put together these beauty pageant sized bouquets with baby's breath, and then jack up the price.)
4.  Single people might feel sad! 

Pros:

1.  The shape of the Valentine heart.
2.  Heart-shaped boxes of chocolate.  (And more and more organic, fair-trade chocolate available.)
3.  Dark chocolate.
4.  Heart-shaped passion fruit donuts at The Doughnut Plant.
5.  Vintage Valentines
6.  Kid-to-kid handmade Valentines
7.  Pop songs about love from when I was in junior high.  (See below.)
8.  Red dresses and pink tights.

So last night, throwing myself into the day, I made chocolate-and-stout black bean tostadas, and picked up a small heart-shaped chocolate cake.

I put on a red dress and hot pink tights.

I visited Bond Street Chocolates where they had absinthe and rose-infused pieces.  Also, skull-shaped bon bons and chocolate Buddhas.















And Valentine's Day makes me think of Courtney Love, who, in spite of everything, I continue to love.  And in addition to the obvious relevant resonance of her last name, that whole kinderwhore look seems inspired by vintage Valentines, no?

This Baby's video was A.'s Valentine to me today: the link sent in an email. Perfect and perfectly free! (Check out the back-up singer's hot pink top!)

 This was my Valentine to all of my friends on Facebook:

There is way to make V-day work for you is all I'm saying.  I hope you found something to love!