beat the clock.

i thought 'young' ended at 21.
i'm officially 22 now and still feeling young.
aging is truly a race against time.

It was my birthday last Wednesday, the 15th of July. I rocked out my hardest every day of last week because I thought 22 was the age where you sort of have to let go of your raging days and embrace the comfort of knowing you're a little too old and a little too "mature" to be going out celebrating rockstardom. Today is Monday and I am at my desk at work going over every glorious moment of the week-long celebration of my birth. My friends and I like to call this a "birthweek." It went as such:

Tuesday, the day before my actual birthday, my co-workers had a surprise birthday for me and some other July babies in the office. It was endearing. At night, my ladyfriends and I went to a few bars (got a free round of patron from my fav. bartender!) and the night ended with my overworked friend Jiin, who got off work right before midnight, surprising me and bringing cake as soon as the clock struck 12am. They even played the fobby cheery techno version of "Happy Birthday" at the place we were at. Strangers clapped for me. It was cute. My friends are amazing.

Wednesday, my actual birthday, my 3 closest friends took me to 1 If By Land 2 If By Sea for a birthday dinner. It was romantic and I love them. We walked out of the restaurant to bump into 4 puppies. None of them had leashes on but all of them were extremely well-trained. We played with them and chatted with their owner, this sweet old man, for a good 30 minutes. I fell in love with Charlie, the pomeranian. He was beautiful.

Thursday, the day after my birthday, my roommates and I went to The Oak Room at The Plaza Hotel for yet another lovely dinner. I must say, it was one of the best dinners I have ever had. We then went to another bar for some drinks and somehow ended up at a club, where we were offered a free table and bottle. Sigh, the night ended in mayhem.

Friday was my official Black & White birthday party at The Cabanas at The Maritime Hotel. The venue was an open rooftop so it was awesome that it started raining around 9pm. The North side of the venue was covered and very spacious so everything worked out pretty well. I wouldn't recommend this place to anyone for a party though. The doorman was the most self-important bastard I have ever met. He was trying to pull off that whole grungy LES hipster look but failed miserably. He DID, however, look like a beggar I had seen in the streets a few hours before. He wouldn't let my guests in because it was "packed" and because he had too many "private events." I told him to shove it and got everyone in. I don't remember all the details of the night though, so it was a pretty successful party, I'd say.

Saturday was supposed to be a ladies night out at this club my friends and I practically own, but we were all various forms of dead so we had a quiet night of sake-bombing. HAHA! Jk, I didn't, but they did. :)

In honor of the hot chaos that was my birthweek, I will go straight home after work today, cook some dinner, watch a movie, clean my room, and go to bed early. Do it up 22 year-old-style. In conclusion, I've definitely learned 2 valuable things as a result of my birthday shenanigans: 1) my body cannot handle excessive amounts of raging anymore and 2) I definitely have the best friends ever. Here's a little twist to the song "Milkshake" by Kelis in tribute to my insanely fabulous friends: "and i'm like, they're better than yours, damn right. they're better than yours." My friends are better than yours. HAHA!

All in all, I had a great birthweek. It was the craziest one yet and I will continue to give my age a run for its money. I hope I can turn 30 and still be able to say that I had an eventful birthweek. I am forever going to beat this darned clock.

Cheers,

A newly 22 Cheryl

ps: This post says it was published on July 14th. Weird. I think I started a post on that date and saved it and edited it to be this current post. Go figure.