golden

today is the last day in my 20s. tomorrow is my golden birthday: 30 on the 30th! i'm looking forward to turning 30. to being more settled, being more at home in my own skin. anyway, that's what i'm hoping will happen. for me, the 20s were full of jangly nerves, fear of uncertainty and failure, and all the sorts of neuroses that plague you as you make your way into the world. not to say that they've gone away, i think i'm just familiar with them now, and can put them in their place. i find this upcoming decade to be full of possiblity, not the onset of old age. tomorrow i shall go to santa cruz with friends, ride the giant dipper (which i rode 4 times in 30 minutes with camp staff during 60 cent ride night for my 25th birthday. one of my favorite birthdays ever) and visit camp.

i am prevented from having a party shindig for the same reason as ever; it's summer and everyone is on vacation and spread out over the country. at least this time around, i didn't have to get lumped together on a cake with all the other summer birthdays at the end of the school year. in addtion, this allows me to spread out the celebrations. dinner with the fam wednesday night, lunch with a mentor-type on thursday, ice cream and a kick ass mexican food dinner with another mentor-type friend and her family last night. i'm milking this for all it's worth.

it's good to be home; i love patronizing some of my old haunts, walking in familiar neighborhoods. why, just on the way to this coffee shop, i passed one of the bars i went to on my 21st birthday. we got kicked out when i let one of my underage friends have a sip of my beer. my first beer, so the decision to share was not based on drunkeness, but rather naivete. silly. but i can say i got kicked out of a bar and seem as if i am somewhat dangerous/belligerent, for whatever that is worth.

rent on thursday night was pretty cool. the characters lost some of their mythic stature for me; as my friend bryce sang his heart out as roger, i couldn't help but remember him when he was in junior high and i was taller than him. those days are long ago. anyway, it was a great production. and a few of us waited outside the stage door trying not to look too much like groupies. the cast seems so much larger than life on stage; i was surprised to be standing eye to eye with the guy who played mark; and we walked with them to the BART station. the guy who played tom collins nearly jumped on me when a small hot doggy dog scuttled past us on the dingy city street, fleeing its owner; he thought it was a large rat.

some of the circumstances of rent seem dated now; the diagnosis of HIV positive is not the immediate death sentence that is was then. or is it? i wonder if the reality of AIDS is something we are just desensitized to now. still, as in many of the musicals i have seen, the yearning for connection and significance comes through with a clearness and and poignancy that takes one's breath away.

the chickens are turning on each other. it is quite annoying; perhaps they miss their owners. in the meantime, i do an easter bunny act and bestow fresh eggs on grateful friends.

well at the risk of inciting stalkers, but if you would like to send me cards/gifts/monetary donations/a pony for my birthday
send them to...

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