my birthday

WOOT!

My birthday was yesterday. It was a fairly good day, I mean, considering the weather sucked, I basically sat at home and I missed Idol! lol!!

So.... here's an update, sorta. My roommate and I went to my Aunt's house for dinner (Pot Roast and potatoes.. mmmmmm!) and to celebrate, cause her birthday is Saturday and I have to work. She made a cake.. from scratch.. and buttercream icing, also from scratch.. oh yummy! It was good to be with family. Besides my cousins are the freakin'awesomest ever. And super smart!

My presents:

Amanda got me a coffee for one mug. It's a french press, and SO FREAKIN' AWESOME! She also got me an "affirmation ball" which is like a magic 8 ball, but a yellow smiley face and says nice stuff. And a book of "50 Jobs Worse Than Yours"
Elizabeth got me stuff from Disney, not sure what yet. But I think she's getting me Crocs in black and red, with Mickey heads for eyes.
Parents nothing yet.. but it'll probably be a trip back home with some entertainment thrown in!
Aunt and family. $10 iTunes gift check. Yeah, I don't use iTunes. It's not because I don't like music, in fact it's the opposite reason. I like music far too much, and when it's just a dollar here, a dollar there, I'd spend way too much!
Roommate -- Tickets to CMT Crossroads taping with Reba McIntyre and Kelly Clarkson! WOOT! It's a taping and it's by invitation only tomorrow night! We tried every which way to get tickets, and apparently she did.. I haven't asked how.. yet. LOL!! YAY!!

Apparently, I need to change my wardrobe.

Or my personality.

I was at SuperBowl party tonight, and was sitting talking with a group of my aunt’s friends. One of them has a daughter that is moving into my neighborhood and was discussing her moving adventures and such, and I commented that her life sounded a lot like mine…. And one of the men said, “Well, but she’s older"

and I looked at him quite cross-eyed. I had just met all of these people, and the woman I was talking to didn’t seem THAT old, and the impression I was getting was that her daughter was younger than me… So I asked how old she was…. And turns out the daughter was several years younger than me… and that the man thought I was more than 5 years younger than I am.

This might not sound like much, but I’m still just barely younger than 30. The ages between 20 and 30 are quite diverse, at least in one’s personality, the way one carries herself, and the way she dresses. I know I have a youthful personality, as well as a Peter Pan/ Never wanna grow up complex…. But I really would like to appear at least within 5 years of my age.

It’s funny. When I was a jr or sr in high school, some of my classmates thought I could pass for 21. Of course, all they wanted me to do was try to buy them beer! In college, not much a problem.. but since I graduated, things have gotten worse! I got carded at WalMart for trying to buy R-rated movies. It wasn’t even just one occasion, I was trying to buy Backdraft once, and Thelma and Louise a second time. This is even more humiliating than being carded for liquor, cause they didn’t even think I was over 17!!!!!!!! Just this summer, I was at dinner before the American Idol concert. We were all sitting around the table, 6 of us. Two were older women, old enough to be my mom, while the other 3 were all younger than me. One just by a few months, another by 2 years, and then the 3^rd was just barely 21. They all ordered drinks, and then I was the last one, and when I did, the waitress asked for IDs. She said she wasn’t going to, until I ordered something, because, apparently, I was the only one who she thought was underage. I think I was a little bit humiliated at that point!!

I can’t help but wonder sometimes if I need to change something in my appearance or my attitude or what. Maybe it’s a blessing. Who knows.

I saw Kevin Bacon on TV tonight.

He's always reminded me of you.

I miss you.

In 2 weeks, it will be a year since I saw you last. It seems like longer. We didn't talk for very long the last time, because we were in the produce aisle, near the organic veggies. But you seemed very excited to see me. You went out of your way to run into me (litterally) with your cart. I would have gone on talking on the phone, picking out carrots, not even noticing you were there.

I noticed your shoes that day. And I noticed your arms. Your shoes were quite trendy and I thought, "wow, he must be growing up, losing that high school/college boy look" and the arms, well, I thought perhaps it was a cop thing, though I'm not sure why cops would have hairless arms. Briefly, I wondered about you, but it was only in passing because at the time, being SO CLOSE to Valentine's Day (and of course, my birthday) I was infatuated with you.

I had been for a while.

Infatuated with you. Since that trip to the west coast and that day at Universal, sitting, talking, in the rain. Riding the coasters. Leaving the rest of the group someplace else. We had to be in groups of 2, because it was a youth group trip. You were a "youth", I was a "counselor". It was all technicalities because you were already 18, as far as that was concerned. And I never had grown up yet. Ruben knew it, we all knew it. But I don't think even Ruben knew it then. He teased you quite a bit about a possible crush you had on the girl who helped us that week. And then the "awards" had more ribbing for you and I in them.

You say you've known your entire life. You were close to Ruben then. I would have thought maybe you would have said something to him by then, but I guess not. Ithink he would have been the type to not tease about something so opposite of what you say you are.

I can't believe how long it took me to find out. I searched for you on MySpace. I searched long and hard. And then I saw you on the news. You're a detective now, but still a new one. And you were holding a news conference. That didn't make any sense. You're still too new for that. And then I looked at the content that surrounded the news conference. It was a hate crime. And then I put the pieces together. I couldn't find you on MySpace because when I searched for you, I thought I still had a chance with you. Once I realized why you were holding the news conference for that hate crime, and that you were the liasion to that community, I searched under those paramaters, and there you were.

I told you I never knew. I told you I never would have thought you were that way.

You told me you've known your whole life.

Why didn't you tell me yourself?

I don't hate you. I really don't. I certainly am surprised at who you say you are. But I don't hate you. I still love you. I love you for the brother in Christ that I believe you to be. I hope that the entire time you said you wanted to go into the ministry, this was part of who you were. I want to believe that the person I was friends with was the exact same person you are now, except you're now more public about your lifestyle.

I guess I thought we were good friends. We talked a lot. A whole lot. But you never told me and I had to find out the hard way. That's why I'm so hurt, because you never trusted me enough to tell me yourself. I think you broke my heart with that. I was very crushed when you decided at the last minute not to come to our Beach SemiFormal when I was in college because you said something else was accidentally scheduled at the same time. Then I thought it was me. You were dumping me. But if this was the case, you still could have come and there would have been no expectations. There never were any expectations, even at the time, except that we'd wear hawaiian shirts, matching lei's, dance to Jimmy and have a great time. I did have a great time. I have my sisters to thank for that. But you did hurt my heart by not coming. You have hurt it more by not confiding in me.

I guess that's all I have to say to you about this. Even tho you'll never read this and I won't send it to you. I had to get things off of my chest.

I'll still hurt a little whenever I see Kevin Bacon tho. But I don't blame him either.

afterthought:
I do want to know why you went out of your way that day in the store.