EastGirlsWest

Okay, I know it was a week ago, and I promise this is the last you’ll hear from me about my birthday. But I just got this great photo from Angela, which was taken at my birthday brunch, and requires some explanation.

Reflected in my sunglasses are the five incredible women I shared brunch with. Not sure I can list them exactly from left to right, but they are Angela, Michelle, Aaryn, Pam, and Gayle. We dined at Cafe Chloe, and I sat in the midst of more talent, brains, wit, charm, kindness, insight, generosity, bravery, vibrance, creativity and stunning beauty than I’ve ever seen.

All I could do was look at these women around me and revel in the good luck that helped me get to know each of them since moving to San Diego. I felt very fortunate, and inspired, and it was the best possible way to begin my 35th year.

P.S. Nice photo here of me and The Boyfriend later in the birthday, which he also played a significant role in making absolutely perfect.

And when I say east, I mean almost as FAR east as possible without leaving the country. I’m in Eastham, Massachusetts - located just below the elbow of Cape Cod, about 25 miles from Provincetown which is at the very tip of the peninsula.

And geez, it took us a long freakin’ time to get here. One of those epic, nightmare travel days, which specifically involved sitting in Dulles for eight straight hours. But wait, it gets worse: THERE WAS NO WI-FI AT THE AIRPORT. No. Wi. Fi. In the busy international airport that serves our nation’s capital. What the?

At least there was sushi.

This extended stay at Dulles was due to freakish rain in Boston. We were supposed to get in at 5:30, at which point my mother was to pick us up for the 90 minute drive to her house from Logan airport. Instead, we landed at midnight and endured a harrowing shuttle ride to a hotel in the Back Bay. We then ordered room service (burger, fries, alcohol) at 1am, wolfed it down at 2am and were asleep by 2:30.

When we woke up at 4am to begin our travel day in San Diego almost 24 hours earlier, I vowed I would eat healthy in the airports. Well, I did. Yet still managed to end the day falling asleep with fried food in my mouth and red wine dribbling down my pajamas.

The silver lining is that we got to spend some time in Boston the next day. Began with brunch at Trident on Newbury Street. I used to live in Boston during college and for a few years after. During that time, Trident was my absolute favorite place to eat, read, shop, and drink coffee. It’s this not very slick, overcrowded, vaguely new-age-but-still-kind-of-hip bookstore/cafe. I haven’t been to Boston in a few years, and I was worried it might be gone - replaced by Starbucks or Jamba Juice or - god forbid - Walgreens. But it’s still there! Most of the menu was even the same, and I couldn’t have been more comforted, eating my egg white and smoked salmon scramble, regaling The Boyfriend with stories of my misspent youth.

Next stop was Newbury Comics, followed by a stroll through the rain over to the Christian Science headquarters. Our destination was the Mapparium, which is an amazing structure best explained (and seen) here. Of course, I didn’t tell The Boyfriend why we were headed to the religious complex, and he looked at me with one eyebrow up and extreme suspicion as I pulled him past the ginormous Christian Science church and actually into the library next door. Ultimately, he realized I wasn’t plotting a surprise pitch for conversion. Instead, I took him to the center of the earth, and we stood on a glass bridge immersed in the geopolitical sphere of 1935.

After catching a bus from South Station, we finally made it to our final destination. It’s still raining here, but it’s supposed to clear up tomorrow. And really, it doesn’t matter, because I’m perfectly content to catch up on my New Yorker reading, watch the birds flitting on and off of the feeder outside the window, look at the tide rising in the marsh across the street, stretch, yawn, eat fresh strawberries and just BE on VACATION.

So one of the things that has me traumatized about turning 35 is that I CLEARLY remember my mother turning 35. So clearly. I remember what her hair looked like that year, and how upset she was about that particular birthday.

I was nine years old at the time, and must have been studying the U.S. presidency in my elementary social studies curriculum that year. Desperate to make her feel better, and put a positive spin on how old she was, I fell back on what I learned in school a few months before. As she tucked me into bed that night, I said, “Mom, you’re old enough to be president now!”. And the thing is, I really believed she COULD be president. Why not? She had the gravitas, apparently. What else was needed?

So, um, I guess I’M old enough to be president now. Please consider me as a write-in candidate in the next election.

I don’t just have a birthday day. I like to streeeeetch it out over many days, at least a weekend, up to two weeks if possible. While I don’t particularly like getting older, I do love celebrating. Because “celebrating” means food, wine, gifts, socializing and getting final approval over the celebration plans. It’s the best.

Celebrating can also involve pampering oneself, so Angela and I kicked off Birthday Eve with a trip to the spa for facials. What better than glowing skin and lingering scent of lavender in my nostrils to help face the onset of The Big Three Five? Plus, Robert the esthetician raved about my skin to me, which was very kind. The Boyfriend pointed out that I was paying Robert for his services, and it was probably a strategic retail decision for him to rave about my skin. To which I said shut up, he was totally being sincere.

Saturday night brought a differnet kind of celebration: the annual Emmy Awards ceremony for the Pacific Southwest Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. The Boyfriend was nominated, along with our uber-talented friends Michael and Nick, the charming and inspiring Will Marre, and many other colleagues. Turned out to be a big night for our crew! Michael and Nick each made multiple trips to the podium - once with The Boyfriend - winning for this show and these spots. When you get to the spots, watch the one labeled “Sisters” - it’s the winner, and damn good, in my humble opinion.

Now we have a pretty gold statuette in the house. And I got a second chance to wear a really fabulous dress that I bought for a wedding last year. So pretty much a successful night.

And then we went home, where I enjoyed my LAST hour of my 34th year watching a procedural crime drama on the DVR.

On the eve-eve of my 35th birthday, I somehow found myself at an all-ages concert. It was the Arctic Monkeys first show in San Diego, and we watched them perform with thousands of other fans, many of whom were half my age or younger. I think even the band members are still freakin’ teenagers.

Now to be fair, there was a decent smattering of people who looked our age in the audience. But I couldn’t help wondering if they were parents, lurking towards the back, a safe distance from their young teenager but close to enough to make sure they didn’t end up in the parking lot drinking beer after the show with some skeevy 22-year-old. On the other hand, the whole Grup philosophy claims that despite a 20 year age difference, we are all listening to the same music. So maybe they weren’t parents.

But the age thing really hit me as I was standing in a long line for the ladies room in front of three 14-year-old girls who had braces, but no breasts yet. While waiting for my turn in the stall, I could actually feel my ovaries shrivel as time passed. They were giggling together over every picture they’d already snapped with their cameraphones, all wearing the same Artic Monkeys t-shirt and self-conciously stroking their hair. I did not have my camerphone. I left it in the car, which was not very MySpace of me. Instead, I was eyeing the traffic in and out of the stalls, and the general condition of the bathroom, thinking “I bet there’s not going to be any goddamn toilet paper when I get in there.”

So I leaned over from my place in line and grabbed two paper towels to take in with me. The girls stared, wide-eyed, and actually stopped giggling for three seconds. One of them whispered to the other, “that’s a really good idea.” They followed suit. And I coudn’t decide if I was cool in my experienced, concert-going, ladies-room wisdom, or really mom-like for thinking about toilet paper so much.

Meanwhile, The Boyfriend is perenially loved by the youth. Thanks to umpteen semesters of teaching Electronic Media Management at SDSU, we are constantly running in to his former students. Somewhere between the opening band and the main event, one of the guys standing in front of us turned around and said, “Dude! You were, like, the best teacher I ever had!”

And then the Monkeys came out, and they were loud and fun and we cheered and shook our hips and moved our arms and possibly even sang along a few times. And it felt great. And you know what? I didn’t feel so old.

Congressional office searches, Marines killing Iraqi civilians, impending Iranian nuclear crisis, the start of hurricane season, the entire state of South Dakota, the FCC, did I mention the nightmare that is HEALTH CARE IN AMERICA, and so, so, so much more.

Reading the news is hard. Dealing with Pacificare is hard. Sometimes, I like to just watch the pandas. They are ridiculous cute.

(full credit to Anne for alerting me to the Panda Cam)