D crosses the threshold

everybody, meet D. D, everybody.

yesterday was D's birthday celebration at luca lounge, kicking off the first of a series of entering-our-late-20s birthdays. as you can tell, she was already quite happy by the time i arrived, camera in hand.

those happy dudes drinking behind her are D's friends. D was allegedly afraid that "nobody was going to show up" to her birthday party.

puhleaze.

there were 10 gazillion people there to celebrate her birthday. which was not entirely surprising. although we knew that D was the most popular person at northwestern, she confirmed our suspicions that she actually knows everybody under the age of 30 in both manhattan and long island, and perhaps some parts of jersey city.

of course, because we are asocial and afraid of anybody that might actually want to be friendly and speak to us about anything of any substance — or even just say hello — AS, G and i cocooned ourselves into a little corner of the bar. which didn't necessarily protect us, though it did keep us from making conversation with anybody other than D. from across the bar, a dude in a turtleneck and flannel shirt sent a very, very drunken woman to inform AS that he was in love with her. this was frightening. but, like D having 12 million people coming up to say happy birthday, not surprising. i mean, look at her! look at my pretty pretty dumpling!

i'm feeling the love for AS because i got to have a whole afternoon with her, which was awesome, rare, and critical to kicking a minor bout of sadness. we met in the east village in mid-afternoon on saturday, with no real plan except for cocktails. we landed at anyway cafe for crepes and carafes of shiraz, and lots of conversation about important things like theater and fear and creativity and, you know, boys. anyways. late lunch date and wine was a brilliant idea. until i got home and realized i had a hangover at 7pm. sigh. i didn't even really know why i felt so cloudy and sleepy until J, while talking me through my red-wine crankiness, made the astute point that if one should choose to drink in the afternoon, one should power through and continue drinking well into the night, so as to avoid the early-evening hangover.

smart boy, that J.

anyways. because we never actually spoke to any other guests at the party, and spent most of our time there taking pictures of ourselves, i also got this pretty pretty picture of me & G. you wouldn't even think mr. yellow sunshine was all conked out on sudafed. except, you know, that with each sip of gin & tonic he sunk a little deeper into sleepydom land. but he's a trooper.

because, after all, this was D's official launch into the late 20s. and it was fun. but this whole business of turning 27 is rather horrifying, especially for those of us inflicted with MTD. 26 is nice. 26 is happy. 26 is still solidly mid-20s. 26 means it's okay i haven't made any major decisions. 26 means it's still charming, not a little sad, that i have a smurf sink and eat most my meals picnic style on the floor.

right?

anyways. thanks to D for paving the way. next up: amy's second annual one year closer to 30 champagne ball.