Since my romantic life has been voided any substantial activity, I’ve regressed to infancy and have been indulging and posting about things that make me feel like a child again. Previous examples I’ve used have been things like playing Frisbee, karaoke, dancing, salsa, and sleeping outdoors in the grass.
At a recent birthday party, I experienced one of the best things of all.
Goodie bags.
No, not gift bags, those promotional pieces of baloney they thrust at you for attending some stuck up, overrated event, but goodie bags. Like the ones you got when you went to your neighbor’s birthday party in third grade. The contents inside included things like plastic flowers, gum, fart bags, party hats with Mickey Mouse on them, and most importantly, celebratory plastic horns so we could make an outrageously annoying amount of noise. In addition to this fun mix, there were tongue tattoos (banana flavored!) and the kind of balloons magicians use to make animals. Naturally, we got too distracted contorting the balloons into different types of phalluses, but other than that and the fact that I was high on white wine, I truly felt like I was eight years old again.
The whole experience brought me back to my actual eighth birthday, one of the few birthdays I didn’t have a tantrum or throw things at my innocent guests. I had a unicorn cake. I wore neon blue spandex pants and nobody judged me for it (just another of the many benefits of being a child). It was a gymnastics party, which in retrospect makes no sense because I never really liked gymnastics, but I guess it was a party theme that got boys more involved than if it were ballet.
What’s awesome about birthdays is that you get to be the center of attention for a prolonged, constant amount of time. People also feel uncomfortable denying you anything, so you just for fun, you can ask for really outrageous things and watch them squirm. But adult birthday parties become cluttered with so many complications, like do I invite all of my ex-boyfriends or just three? Do I serve quiche or sushi? Can I even afford sushi? Do I hire a bartender like some self-righteous, snobby person, that I secretly envy? Or do I just throw down a lot of orange juice and make people stir their own drinks? What assortment of mixers do I need for Bacardi? Should I wear something casual like I’m too cool to worry about the fact that it’s my birthday? Or should I wear something that’s reflective / glittery / neon so that if anyone has any doubt about whose birthday it is, they’ll know it’s me because I look like the human equivalent of a disco ball?
No. When you’re a kid these things don’t matter. You don’t lose sleep about who caters your unicorn cake, you just throw on aquamarine leggings, put obnoxious sparkles in your hair, and you’re ready to rock ‘n roll. And I think that’s the key to a successful adult birthday party, especially in New York, where we’re so egocentric that it would take an industrial strength Buddha squad to straighten us out, is to make it the one day out of the year where we’re not so self-conscious.
This is exceedingly difficult because birthdays provoke self reflection, facing the reality that we’re getting older and wrinkly, and are probably the time when were most self-conscious (aside from swimsuit season and what our mother’s in town, of course). So forgoing the billion person blow out in lieu of something more relaxed, with people you can be yourself around, and enjoying the childish stink of a fart bag with, might be the viable way to go. I’m going to keep that in mind for my upcoming summer fiesta, perhaps steering the opposite direction from last year.
