I don’t know why, but reading about Joel Siegel’s death, a week before his birthday, really put a damper on the whole season. Well, I know why, but anyway, I remember sitting in the backseat of the Professor driving down to DC with Pi and her boyfriend, who we have finally established that we will call Daffy from now on, thinking I’m not doing this again. It’s crazy. And when I got back to New York and I was shopping for my family barbecue, I definitively told my mom that I was never doing this again. It’s CRAZY.
“That’s what you said last year,” she said paying me very little attention. (I don’t know where those rumors about only children being spoiled come from, because I basically amused myself with an army of imaginary friends and the bouncing of a rubber ball against the wall.)
Well, I don’t remember saying it last year, but I’m saying it this year! No more birthday seasons for me. Next year, I’m going to Coney Island by myself and hitting baseballs in the batting cage.
And just in case I forgot I planned to post the following message to myself:
“Dear present-day Dawn, just in case you have forgotten over the course of the last 11 months, I just wanted to remind you about a few things. Do you remember how you lit the grill, but forgot to spread out the coals and grabbed the food rack with your bare hand, thinking ‘oh, it hasn’t been on that long, how hot could it be?’ And then the searing pain and burning flesh answered the question for you? And then you dropped the rack back onto the grill, looked at the imprint of the rods on your fingers and ran to the bathroom to get the Silvadene cream for your hands, only to drop the box into the toilet? But when you reached into the bowl to get it, the cold water felt so good on your hand that you just lingered there for a few minutes? Just checking. Sincerely Latter-Day Dawn.
But then, that all just seemed so self-indulgent and pitiful and really rather lame. And while I am all those things, I’d prefer to keep the evidence of that contained to the handful of those in the know, rather than provide the entire blogosphere with evidence that I am anything other than self-confident, easy-going and a pure delight. At all times.
And so we present you all the really great things that happened during the birthday season:
I did my annual roadtrip with Pi. I stretched out in the backseat and watched the drive through the back window. There’s something lovely about being able to take in a drive. When I finally got a car in 2000 and had picked up my best friend from high school, who got his license at 15 and got a car at 16, and thus, was always the designated driver for our little group, he said – as he looked out the passenger side window –wow, I never noticed, but the world is beautiful.
And it really was. Even just the side of I-95’s road. I saw a preteen girl chatting on her cell on the side of the road, while her parents dealt with their car problems. And as she chatted away, twirled her hair with her free hand, I wondered who she could be talking to and what she could be saying and whether the two of them would still be friends in ten years. And in a flash, the car had passed her and she was gone.
Pi and Daffy dropped me off at Lola and Polo’s place. Lola stood on the steps of her new house, holding Princess Leia’s hand. The two of them had come to visit me last December and I was amazed at how much my little namesake had grown. “Whoa, is that Lola’s daughter?? She looks soooo big!!” I said to Pi as we parked.
“Probably, right? I doubt she went and got another kid, just for your visit.”
I laughed.
And indeed, it was Leia all growed up.
She hid from me at first, but with a little help from my friends at Toys R Us, I had a brand new best friend within 20 minutes.
Princess Leia really is just the smartest kid I have ever met. Even when she was a baby, I remember watching her try to get a ball — and when she couldn’t reach it with her hands, she thought for a little while and then she figured out she could she get it with her feet! She was like four months old or something.
I gave her a dancing Elmo, which was broken, so her dad tried to fix it with his screwdriver and after watching him once, she took her toy screwdriver and tried to fix the toy too! She’s not even two and she can read, speak two languages AND make pottery. She’s not so good with the counting, but as I told her mom, she can’t be adorable AND amazing at everything …it just wouldn’t be fair to the other babies. It. Just. Wouldn’t.
I also got Princess Leia an electric guitar, you know, so she could drive her parents crazy and then I would always be able to beat them at Scrabble. But her dad totally showed me. He sat there for twenty minutes absently playing the Sesame Street song, until I thought I would lose my mind and I was all: “STOP IT!!”
And then when he realized what he was doing, he laughed and said “what? is this annoying you???” And then of course, played it over and over and over again. (Update: Lola just sent me this email: oh, and she
can’t play you a song on her guitar b/c it has lead
paint in it!
you tried to poison my child! (that’s ok, we’ll send
it back and get her something … quiet instead 
-Lola ) Why is Toys R Us trying to kill babies?
Later that night, Polo decided he would make cookies and I, of course, offered to help. Which, as everyone who knows me knows, is code for “I will eat them when they are baked.”
But nooo. He’s giving me eggs to crack and batter to whisk. At which point, I desperately text pearatty: “Help me! Evidently, Polo did not get the memo that Dawn’s baking contribution is limited to eating! He is making me whisk. WHISK.”
To which she replied “Heeey, I didn’t know you could whisk. You’re doing all the whisking from now on.”
Dammit. Foiled again.
The next day, Drobbski and his wife came to take me to lunch at the pancake house. Now, before you get all disappointed with the thinking the place was actually made of pancakes, it’s not. But they sure did have lots of pancakes. Lots and lots and lots of kinds of pancakes. And they were delicious. Jersey City wins though, because it’s closer. Closer. The answer we were looking for there…closer! The Drobbskis live in the phattest Mansion I had ever seen (up till that point, as you will see later) It’s got like five floors and nineteen bedrooms and twenty kitchens and eight gyms and ninety bathrooms…all of which, while impressive and all…barely made an impression. What did make an impression? THE SICKEST 100 INCH FLATSCREEN TV hanging in their bedroom. I think I started to cry. And then I hugged it. And then they were worried I would never leave their bedroom. So I was escorted out. And my picture given to security.
On the ride back to New York Pi and Daffy played this game where they asked me how many world leaders/CEO of companies I knew. I said “George Bush!” They were like, ok…who else. Then I said “Tony Blair…no…damn…that um…new guy!” They laughed. I cried. And then when we played 20 questions, I picked myself. That showed them.
The next birthday season event was the family barbecue. My family is weird. But silly and I can definitely handle them once a year. I played Scrabble with my 14 year old cousin, who adores and worships me for the amazing role model that I am. I crushed her in like four back to back games of Scrabble and then celebrated by pointing and laughing. She then said “so what? You’re like 40, if you can’t beat a ninth grader at Scrabble, you’ve got problems.” And then I said “Shut up.” I told her. And then we watched the Earth Thing on TV. And the Yankees and the Mets both lost. There was also birthday cake. And then we listened to Fisch call and sing me Happy Birthday at midnight. Ah, good times.
I was still up and bouncing off the walls, so at 3 a.m. I met up with Karol, Ari, Jamie and some other people at this creepy loft in SOHO. I saw a rat run across the street, as I waited to be let in to the dark, narrow staircase leading up to the apartment. I am so going to die here, I thought. On my birthday. Thankfully, I made it upstairs alive. We played poker around a dark, smoky kitchen table not for money or chips — no no, we played for the right to hear a song on the computer. I won “Birdhouse in my Soul.” And then Jamie did this trick which proves that he is inside my head at all times and that is why I will never beat him at poker.
No really. I’m not kidding, I picked a card and he knew what it was, even though he had messed up the “trick” part of the trick. Scary.
I went home and slept for three hours or so, I don’t know why. I was just restless the whole day. So, I figured, I’m up. What the heck. And went to church. The message of the mass was something like “let God comfort you when you’re sad,” And then they had a priest from Africa talk about doing missionary work and I swear, if he had asked for volunteers, I was gonna go. But then, he just asked for money and I was disillusioned.
That night I had the my friends over, on my actual birthday for the first time, in years. (The day before at my family barbecue, my mom was all “today is the barbecue, for black people…tomorrow is the barbecue for white people.” I laughed. Mary, Alceste and Dawn 2 came over early to play four person Scrabble…I can’t remember if we finished, but I’m pretty sure I was ahead. Then F-train arrived and announced that he’d only play me if I spotted him 100 points. Sheesh, white people, always looking for handouts. Mary grilled up the corn and Karol did some burgers and hotdogs. Binda and her “coworker” Min came by. And, of course, Pi and Daffy. But as much as I love them all, it isn’t their presence that was most noteworthy. No. That honor goes to Kel. Who is Kel, Dawn? Well, thank you for asking dear reader. Kel is this dorky, gross, and just a little bit creepy dude that I went to college with. He was known for stalking every single black woman at Yale during our four years. “So, why would you invite him to your birthday party, Dawn.” “Well, I, of course wouldn’t. But evidently my friend Sabrina has no such hesitation.”
In fact, as I looked through my balcony window and saw this vaguely familiar figure standing there, I thought “wow, he looks a lot like Kel…and then went I went inside and he was standing there, in all his undeniable Kelness,” I thought why I am imagining Kel in my livingroom. So, much did I believe this to be a birthday induced apparition that I almost announced to the room “you guys are not going to believe what I just say in my head.”
But then the all too real figure says “Hi. Dawn, Sabrina is not going to be able to make it, but she invited me, so I came.”
“Kel?”
“Yeah.”
I stared blankly.
“So…umm…Sabrina is not coming?”
At this point, Pi — whose roommate was stalkee #15 circa 1995 disappeared into the kitchen to laugh her head off.
“How–how—umm..how are you?”
He then went into details of his life for the past ten years and asked if there were any openings at my law firm.
I shook my head or shrugged my shoulders or planned the many violent ways I was going to dismember Sabrina.
It’s a bit of a blur.
I invited him to have a hot dog.
Which he did. He then evidently asked someone whose birthday it was.
He stayed for four hours and was one of the last people to leave.
Once he left though, my brother Ron Lad came by with the Entourage boys and a poker game broke out.
Ah, not too shabby opening and closing with a poker game.
