happy birthday

It feels funny to say I'm 29. To me, 29 is the age of older siblings and cousins. It signifies settledness, a steady job, kids, that kind of thing. Part of the problem is culture--the culture I grew up in doesn't match the culture I choose to live in. My supervisor at the Center for Women & Gender told me that at 28, you start to feel more settled in yourself. This is true. I feel like myself, standing on my feet, and not so subject to the drama of adolescence and college. But at the same time, I feel funny still in grad school, like I'm not as evolved as I should be. I have to get over those expectations.

At any rate, I really just wanted to write about my birthday celebration. I made cupcakes using my partner's favorite vegan chocolate cake recipe. Mama bought a pie and sparking blueberry juice, so we had a toast when I got home from work on Friday. Mama and Papa gave me some nice gifts, including slippers and a salad spinner. My partner got me tickets to MacB, a hip hop version of MacBeth at the African-American Shakespeare company, and he took me out to dinner at La Taza de Cafe. The dinner was really good--a couple of Cuban tapas and slow-roasted, garlic studded pork with rice, beans, and maduros. They also have great cocktails, and the flamenco show was very nice. MacB was better in concept than reality--the show tried to take on too much, though some of the individual details were kind of brilliant, setting the story in a Bay Area record company, adding funny contemporary touches to Shakespeare's dialogue, and setting a bunch of the soliliquies as raps (most of which worked). The opening to the second half of the show with the witches ("Bubble bubble toil & trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble") was particularly smart, with three Destiny's Child-esque women singing the incantation. It was cool to see, anyway, and it was a wonderful birthday present. Last of all, he made me a 29th birthday CD combining very sweet love songs, great nostalgic R&B, and a few tracks by New Kids on the Block (including one from the new album). Thank you, baby!!