I finally “officially” wrapped up celebrating my birthday. To be honest, people look for a way everyday to celebrate themselves and I’m above that. It’s just that a birthday gives you a valid excuse to be narcissistic. Moreover, I want to celebrate it before I get old and stupid like most people and try not to make it a big deal.
I put a facebook announcement up and e-mailed all my colleagues in my program who I had met only twice before at a district meeting. But we needed an excuse to get drunk together. My birthday was the closest so that’s how the cards fell. I was a little nervous about hosting a party since I technically don’t have an apartment to myself so I tried to solve that question by inviting everyone who lives there so they wouldn’t get jealous and complain to the landlady. Honestly, I was more fearful of the two sons of the Landlady who live in the apartment. They are not social at all and just run to their rooms after they work at the restaurant. I would kill myself if I worked in the same place that I slept. Cabin fever has turned them into “old man jeenkins. “
It was 7:30 and it was just Emma and I sipping on some wine and eating the French version of BBQ lays. I was honestly wondering if anyone was going to show up. I was envisioning just the two of us with all this wine. I couldn’t decide if I in fact didn’t want anyone to show up J
Then I got a call that 3 of the guys were here. Then 15 mins later it was another 2 girls, then 5 mins later I got a call from this girl I had met named Elen just the week before. “Um, hey josh. We are outside. There are like 12 of us.” Well damn, the dam has broken.
Soon, I was swimming in a sea of beer and wine and barely keeping my head above water.
“Okay everyone upstairs to the top floor!” I had to get out of the shark infested waters. The two sons were only 15 feet away from me and I was not letting them rain on my parade.
We all climbed the stairs to drunk heaven. I looked around and there were 25 of us in the top floor where the common room and kitchen was located.
Wine flowed like a drunken jesus wedding.
It must have been an hour later when I was talking to Dalal who was taking in all the slurred English and nodding and smiling to my friends. She said, “Josh, the land lady is here. She’s right behind you.”
I turned around and in her black dress and pearl necklace she was staring at me half smiling with her eyebrows raised. I interpreted this as a mother’s look of “seriously, son?” I stuttered through my French. “It my birthday and I’m having a little party before I go out.” I emphasized little as best as I could.
“We can here you in the restaurant.”
“Okay, we’re outta here!!!”
I packed up the party and yelled “To the trains people! We’re taking this to the streets of the Paris.”
I don’t think the landlady appreciated the cheers of “hell yeahs” and “hoorays.”
We took the train into the city and honestly I have no idea how we got to Lil Café in Marais. I knew that ‘s where I wanted to go because Alex and Arnauld, the two that took Kelsey and I to that bar so late a couple of weeks ago, were working and I knew they’d give us good service.
We sat on the patio and I walked around as I usually do, flapping my social butterfly wings. I was feeling extra colorful that night anyway. “Oh, you want to buy me a drink for my birthday? Whyy you shouldn’t have J”
We decided to move our party to a place where we could dance if we got bit buy the jitter bug. We picked up a Brazilian couple that got wrapped up in the arms of Anglophone generosity, or drunken generosity. It was all the same..
It was 1:30 a.m.We walked by this bar with maybe one or two people inside. We didn’t need a crowd. We were the crowd. A bar tender in the states would have salivated at 25 people waiting outside eye balling the bar. But here in france, they stair at you like a modern art piece, the minimalist kind where it’s only a white canvas. They probably didn’t want to work.
But we needed a place and we chose this one. Couldn’t tell you the name.
Hazy memory. That’s what I hear happens when you get older. Yeah…that’s why.
Colors.
Music.
“Happy Birthday.”
Hug.
Drink.
Silly dance.
Drink.
Birthday shots.
Drink?
Drink?
Music.
Zombie walk to train.
6 a.m.
I laid my head against the headrest. Closed my eyes. I smelled like cigarettes.
Okay, enough birthday celebration.
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