Love Unmoving

Happy Golden birthday to me! Considering that I suffered the disappointment of not getting my longed for hot air balloon ride and all of my friends were/are utterly fried, I had a most successful birthday. My parents drove up a day early so they could celebrate my birthday with me. This filled me with warm fuzzies and hope that possibly my family would overcome the curse of the Barylak-Birthday-Breakdown one day. (In my family, the Celebrated either has a massive fight, spontaneously bursts into tears for no apparent reason, or my brother gets another piercing/tattoo and upsets my parents.) Anyhow, I got a bottle of Chardonnay on the house from Cady's Grill and enjoyed a lovely dinner with my parents with absolutely no hysterics.

Then I returned to campus and decided I wanted to have a little Austria nostalgia, so Monica and I went over to Matt's place to finish off the Chardonnay and watch The Twilight Zone, now my new favorite show. Brilliant. My parents called to tell me they were comfortable in their nesty little bed 'n breakfast watching...The Twilight Zone. I am frequently dicomfitted by the fact that I am so vastly different from everyone else in my family. Then I get reassurance that we do share some genes.

After this I returned to my dorm and experienced the Birthday Letdown which I'm sure everyone is familiar with, so I was left pacing my room like a caged animal wishing I'd had my hot air balloon ride. "Only the cause and end of movement:" It's not just the desire to defeat loneliness, it's the desire to discover something God-like in communion with someone else. Then I talked to Sean on the phone lo! and all was well. However, before the time that we planned to meet, Brigid called Sean. I sighed, happy that they finally got to talk, but wishing I could hang out with Sean and talk to Brigid rather than being in my room doing neither. Stupid distance problem. Regardless, after McN. chat Sean and I went to meet the frigid biting cold outside and enjoy a bit of my birthday together. Sean got me a beautiful journal knowing how obsessed with journals I am. He wrote a quote in it from a book I'd lent to him last summer. I always love the presents Sean gives me because in addition to being really nice they are things that actually have a relevance to what we know of each other. And out of the 55 page poem he picked one of my favorite quotes.

Anyway, my night ended with an incredibly nice chat with Angie. I was so glad that we're finally getting to know each other. We'd lived together for a year without really getting to know one another and I always rather felt like I was missing something. So yeah, that was great.

Brigid via email: "I hope you have a beautiful birthday and I wish you health, happiness, many drunken nights without hangovers, minty breath, a voluptuously curvy body, kids with fingers and toes!! and gosh darnit, just the best damn 22nd birthday you have ever had!!" Kalishnikov...you've outdone yourself yet again. Here's to you!

Oh, and manic-depressive camels are never cannibals.