Anatomy of a 19th Birthday: the Epic Tale

~Part One: My Lameocity~

This is a funny story, really. I had planned on making a blog post for May 1st called "Anatomy of a 19th Birthday" and have it be about all the mundane things I did that day. It turned out something completely different and in the end it was completely ming-bogglingly awesome. I'm actually left feeling completely grateful for all those who love me because they all went through so much effort. But I'm revealing too much. On with the story.

So my original plan was to make a rather sarcastic blog about all the mundane things I did on Friday, May 1st. This is how it would have begun.

I awoke and wanted to wear this as my outfit to school that day, because, as you know, one should want to look pretty on their birthday,
but it was raining and I had to go to an all-day dance rehearsal, so I ended up having to wear this instead

Before rehearsal I sat stretching, not really sad about not having a party or anything, just thinking about what I might plan for the weekend. I asked Brandon what he was doing that night and he just said "I'm going out... sorry." Everyone seemed to be busy. (In retrospect, I really don't catch on to these things, do I? Maybe I haven't watched enough television) Then he said quite calmly, "Cheer up. Your day will get better. Just have hope. You don't know what will come." I took this as him being cheesy to cheer me up and shrugged it off.

And to top off the sardonic entry I was planning, I was going to post a picture of my "birthday cake", on account of I figured I should have some, so after rehearsal ended I grabbed a nasty brownie from the cafeteria

my birthday cake... or so I thought.

So I'm sitting here in the caf, TOTALLY oblivious to the fact that people had dragged me to the caf and probably wouldn't let me leave if I had tried... I said to Emma "I'm probably going to go home and write a paper," and she said "You can't write a paper!!! ...It's your birthday..." So I sat there watching Jeopardy in the caf for a while when my probably my favorite person on all of NYC showed up in our caf, smuggled in past security by two friends from my class, and showed up right in front of me telling me to get pretty cuz we were going out. I could see that my mundane blog entry now would never be. Oh what would the rest of the night hold, I wondered?

~Part 2: The Kidnapping~

So Jennifer kidnapped me.

It was pretty epic. I'm sure I looked like this when I saw her in my cafeteria

shock

Which quickly became this

as I figured out that she wasn't letting my actual date of birth go un-celebrated.

A lot of the excitement was the meshing of my two worlds: my friends within school and my friends who live uptown and already have jobs and are (sometimes) [technically] grown-ups. Okay, not really. But it was cool, y'know? That she came to see my school and all. It was really refreshing.

So I thought to myself, this is SO FREAKING NICE OF JEN. She's gonna take me out to get, like, margaritas or something with Trish and Steph, you know, her girlfriends. Because I absolutely LOVE their company and I love outings like that. And, you know, margaritas. So we went to my dorm (which was horribly messy) where Jen had never seen... well I wasn't planning on having guests, which is why my room was messy... anyway I changed clothes into my cute modcloth dress and earrings and borrowed my roomie's yellow handbag.

SO OFF WE WENT! And where was the first place we were to go?

...Well, apparently my getting out of rehearsal super early messed up plans, per se, or so I was sort of figuring at the time (reservations at a bar with the girls someplace uptown? Ok, later, yeah.) So happened to come upon....

....A DAY SPA!! Where we recieved chair massages. YAAAAAY
Actually, I was really, really, really, really stressed and tense from the previous week... which my *fabulous* masseuse mentioned once or twice... so it was definitely one of the best birthday presents EVER. Thank you, Jen, by the way. I owe you packing assistance.

So after what was probably one of the best massages I've ever had in my life, we took a stroll down to the seaport

my beautiful seaport...

And went on a little shopping trip at the Seaport mall. First we went to Bath & Bodyworks, then to Express, where I bought this fantastic oversized cardigan thing
which I'm totally in love with

*peace sign*

And onward with the night! So, we went to this bar & Mexican place called Red down by the seaport. Jen won't tell me anything other than "everything that happens tonight is only because we love you..." (which should have worried me, I guess.... heh heh)

Here is my theory at this point: she won't tell me who we're meeting but I know Trish will be there, so I figure it is just us girls and maybe some of their husbands and we're going to get good and tipsy and do some karaoke.

So we have ourselves some enhiladas and guacamole, and I sip this delicious strawberry margarita

going...

going...

...gone...

We spent a pretty good amount of time at this bar. I figure Trish or who the hell knows at this point is gonna walk through the door and then we'll take some train uptown and do who knows what and it'll be about five people and that's that. Karaoke with girls. Right?

But then Jen says, after lots of texting with some unknown third party, that we're gonna go on another walk so I drag myself off the stool and follow her through the rain up some stairs... weird... to the third level of the seaport mall... into a pizza Uno.... where I turn left and waiting at this GIGANTIC TABLE WAS

HOLY SHIT,

MY ENTIRE FRESHMAN MUSICAL THEATER CLASS

(Obviously this is not what it looks like when you surprise someone at a surprise party. This was taken later)

HOLY SHIT ARE YOU KIDDING ME A SURPRISE PARTY??? FOR ME?? WAIT WHY DID I NOT PIECE THIS TOGETHER EARLIER

Well the tequila made me freak out a little, and I couldn't actually even piece together what exactly was happening until a couple minutes into it after blowing out the candles on my... oh wait... did I mention?

STRAWBERRY CUPCAKES!!!Get it? Just like my blog! GENIUS! ...and delicious.
Food for pun...

So of course I scarf some cupcakes and eat my way back into complete sobriety, whereupon I can form coherent thoughts in my head again and process the fact that almost everyone in my class came after rehearsal and that was really, really awesome of them. And it turned out really freaking fun too. There were cupcake eating contests, although I regretted the fact that this meant they couldn't enjoy the whole flavor of the cupcakes. I mean, Trish and Jen went through a lot of effort for those beautiful little cakes. Look at the sprinkles and green letters and everything. And it was a Martha Stewart recipe too, and they were some fiiiiiiiiiiine ass cupcakes.

All in all, it was a really really splendid night. I have never had a surprise party in my entire life. This was my first. And even though my mom sort of has no concept of what collegiate freshmen find cool or funny and the fact that it is completely different from what middle aged art directors find cool and funny, it was really really nice of her to get the pizza and everything. So thank you to everybody involved.

Jen ended up getting me... oh geez, in the end, the chair massage AND the strawberry margaritas. And the cupcakes. I owe you... 3458790 hours of community service in the form of helping you pack or whatever and dog-sitting, yeah? Although the dog sitting wouldn't really be work...

Also thank you to Harlan who wrangled some thirty-odd freshmen and, I would assume, helped order all the food and put together the tables and stuff. Oh, and lit the candles on my cupcakes. Thanks Harlan! (As a consolation prize you got some gay lovers who will jump at the first opportunity you decide to switch teams...)

Well, blogging about all this has finally justified it for myself, in some weird twisted way of mine. I'm totally honored and everyone did a good job of hiding it... I guess it's cuz they're all actors, right? Well, to all of you involved

Thank you
Merci Beaucoup
Gracias
Domo Arigatou Gozaimasu!
Xie xie!
Eat some yummy cupcakes and have an awesome day. I demand it!