(coda: I realize it might seem absurd to call oneself “girl” past a certain point; however, yesterday josue, while reviewing custom mural procedures with tammy and me referred to us as “you girls” not once but twice, and if you knew josue, you’d know this could only be taken endearingly, so I herewith consider myself vindicated)
1. this birthday far, FAR exceeded any possible expectations– comments and even posts and emails and facebook superwall thingamajigs of all kinds from all over reminding me of this insanely beautiful network I have of treasures called friends. bless me, my heart swells near to bursting, really. “thank you” feels insufficient to the task.
2. walked into work to a toasted sesame bagel with cream cheese and superjuice from tammy. moments later gina appeared with a bunch of roses. 10 minutes later a singing train of pals led by laura and gina with giant raspberry danish and marzipan frog. barely a blink later I was taken out for lunch by most awesome work friend crew. visit to the new building in the afternoon, which I hadn’t seen since it was empty and echoing warehouse space, and now it’s all built out, nearly complete, with carpeting and furniture and all– and new products a gorgeous, sunshiney space with delightful new spacious modular furniture– wheeeeee!!! after work quickie photoshoot drink with the ladies, treat of the lovely miss darcie, who somehow eluded frog-kissing documentation, and then off to most delectable french dinner at mon ami gabi with the world’s best brother in law. whew! whatta wonderful whirl. somewhere in there I think I did about five minutes’ worth of work. ;)
3. I had a thought about creative work and its sanity-inducing powers– it sounds obvious, but the key really is to keep doing it. there’s this phenomenon where you make something, and it gives you pleasure, and you look at it– you turn it around in your hand and maybe marvel at some kind of thing that moved through you to make this little bit of wonder and you walk away from it and return to it and admire it a little more– and gradually the pleasure seeps out of it, and the only cure is to get right back out and make something new. that’s how it works. for me, at least. it’s pretty delicious, actually, as long as I don’t get too hung up on the object, fretting it this way or that, identifying with or critiquing or excessively investing in it, and instead remember to reinject myself back into the flow of the process, to surrender to it, to swim.
4. please forgive my occasional existential whinges in this space. it is, for good or ill, an online journal, among other things. occasionally I turn a corner and see what I’ve gone on about and am chagrined at my own smallness and think, boy, I could really stand to get out in the world and do something for somebody else and quit my privileged whitegirl bellyaching. there. I’ve said it first, now you don’t have to. ;)
5. I’m embarrassed to admit false alarm about navelgazer.com. apparently I did pay my renewal fee back before christmas. I don’t know how this fact eluded me, but I’m going to officially chalk it up to Holiday Haze. thank you to the thoughtful and perceptive friend who actually checked whois info and pointed out to me the 2009 renewal date. there is no emoticon expressive enough to convey my sheepishness. but hey! woo! another year of navelgazer. maybe I’ll actually do something with the ol’ site. don’t hold yer breath, tho. and, now, just to be clear: this here’s not navelgazer– I know these online things are confusing, so I’m going to flog this poor hoorse and point out how this is navelgazer.VOX.com versus navelgazer.com, which is my very own domain, purchased in the eons-ago dawn of the interwebs, on which I pretty much posted my dreams for a bunch of years. then there’s the blogger-hosted lint, navelly.blogspot.com, to which I moved said dream-cataloging a coupla years back. and then there’s flickr for the snaps. so virtually these days there’s really not much of anything on navelgazer.com since I quit paying to host a whole lot of images and text archives and whatnot in that space, being cheap, and actually these days there’s no way to see all that ancient stuff except through the wayback machine— but someday I think I may find the energy to put it back out there in some form. though, really, I have a host of good intentions, few of which ever see actual light of day, so probably not.
6. laura’s uncle maya isn’t feeling so hot– please wish some wellness in his direction. thanks.
7. xo.
I've been in a daze and totally missed your HBD. Belated felicitations! And know that how ever old you get, I'm still OLDER! =D (I don't know how to make a smiley face with glasses and dentures…)
I'm so glad your day was lovely! Sarah v.41 will surely be great.
Happy post-birthday! Hoorah for a good day!
Happy belated birfday! Sounds like it was a great one, and obviously, you're surrounded by amazing people!
What a wonderful birthday!!! The marzipan frog sounds delightful. Here's to an amazing year to come.
happy birthday navelgazer. hope the frog turns into a giant marzipan prince. that way you could slice him up and youd have enough cake to eat all year. >burp<
Happy belated birthday….I'm a day late all the time, lately.
It sounds like you had a wonderful day…of which you most definitely deserve.
I hope this year brings you all of the joys, happiness and laughter your little heart can hold.
Smooches….
Happy belated!! I'm a day late, a dollar short, as usual.I'm so glad that you had such a goddamn AWESOME day! You are cherished!!
thank you all for the birthday wishes! :) I definitely have felt well cared for and immensely fortunate this week. xoxo.