When I planned this post in my head last week, it was going to begin, “For the first time in my 23 (what!!) years of life, I wasn’t in Nebraska on my birthday.” As it turns out, though, I was born in Kansas AND I spent my 14th birthday at the Newark airport, as I blogged about last week.
Still, for the past eight years or so, I’ve gone to Blue Orchid on every single birthday, and it felt wrong not to be there. Birthdays stress me out as is (I have this irrational fear that I’ll plan a party and nobody will show up, even though that hasn’t ever happened to me?), so I was extra scared about what would happen on my first birthday in a new city. To counter this fear, I decided to celebrate myself for six days in a row, just to be safe.
For those of you who care (my mom), here’s a recap of exactly how I spent those six days:
On Tuesday, Jeannie and I saw The Prom because it’s my favorite show on Broadway right now (maybe ever). You all have to see it so we can discuss. I cried six times. What’s new?
On Wednesday, I went to Murray’s Bagels before work because it was nice out, which is an entirely valid reason to get a bagel. That evening, I saw Kiss Me, Kate, which was also SO GOOD. I cried when Kelli O’Hara walked onstage, which is dramatic even for me, but it’s fine.
My actual birthday was on Thursday, so I woke up an hour earlier than usual to make time to get a blowout. On my walk to work from Drybar, I stopped at Starbucks, where they accidentally made my drink hot instead of iced. Because it was really crowded and I am bad at confrontation, I walked to a DIFFERENT STARBUCKS to get my iced drink. Not my best move, but whatever.
Tori surprised me at work with an everything bagel + veggie cream cheese from Tompkins Square Bagels, which is my new favorite place. Stay tuned for my definitive rating of NYC bagels coming in the next few weeks. Then, my sweet sweet friends Annie, Stephanie and Dakota surprised me with cupcakes delivered to work – such a surprise that when the delivery guy called me, I said “oh sorry, you have the wrong number.”
My coworkers got me MORE cupcakes (less of a surprise, sorry Isabelle), so I was really stocked up by the time I met up with Emily and Hannah for some overpriced rooftop cocktails before our dinner at ilili with Taylor. 10/10 would recommend Lebanese food. 7/10 recommend extra dirty gin martinis. Taylor does NOT RECOMMEND eating olives, but we forced her to try one anyway. Sorry, Taylor :(
Anyway.
After work on Friday, a bigger group of friends (Tori, Rachel, Annie, Lorelei, Emily, Hannah, Taylor and I – who knew I even knew this many people?!) got dinner at Beauty & Essex, which was so fun that we literally didn’t leave the restaurant until 12:30 a.m. after arriving at 8:15 p.m. This time did include a photoshoot in the bathroom, where they serve champagne. Interestingly, they also checked our IDs in the bathroom, but not at the bar? Weird flex, but ok.
We went out on the Lower East Side after dinner, and after befriending some 19-year-olds who bought me prosecco at a fun bar, we ventured off in search of a strip club. Ended up at a swingers bar instead. Left immediately. I wish I had more context, but I’m still confused.
Ultimately, we ended the night at a speakeasy you have to walk through an art gallery to get to, which was pretty cool.
I miraculously woke up on time the next morning — well, Emily knocked on my door on time — so we could meet up with Taylor and Hannah AGAIN to go to a St. Paddy’s (or Maddie’s) Day pregame breakfast. Biggest mistake of the day was leaving the East Village to go to Stone Street in FiDi. Imagine a frosh party in an alley outside + you can’t figure out where people are getting beer. Not ideal. We spent our entire time there in line for a bathroom, got in a fight with a girl who kept yelling at people for peeing slowly, told her we filmed a YouTube video in there, then back to the village we went.
I gave up on celebrating being 13% Irish at that point, and went to get bubble tea with Jeannie and Alec before Jeannie and I went to a party with our voice studio friends. Tbt to when I was a music major. Oops.
For the grand finale on Sunday, I had brunch with some work friends, after which we went to Macy’s and all ended up buying like $100 worth of beauty products. It was 15% off, after all, so it would’ve been silly not to buy all of those things we didn’t need. Whatever.
I ended my day with dinner at Jacob’s Pickles with Morgan, thus completing my week of seeing every single friend I have in this entire city (ok that’s not true I definitely missed some people).
If anyone has made it this far, I thank you greatly for your support. You get the added bonus of learning that my birthday present to myself was deleting all of my old Bumble/Tinder/Hinge matches on Snapchat to correspond with giving up dating apps for lent. No time for that negativity in my life.
I know it was probably silly of me to be stressed about my birthday of all things, but everything went better than I could’ve imagined, and I’m so glad to have found so many amazing friends in this city. Yesterday I had one of those, “wow, I can’t believe I live here” moments while walking through Central Park (cheesy, I know), sooooooo here’s to another year of life and another year in my favorite city.