Birthday Report:
There were bike lights and books, chocolate and assorted other special treats. My main gift was a a Walkman phone. I’ve never owned a mobile worth stealing before; this will be interesting.
Since it is my very own I will be able to download a specialized misery mix tape to take along on journeys instead of making do with a borrowed iPod!
Amy Joy called to sing a birthday song in Dutch. Gordon called from SF. There were text and email messages from all over the world. Byron prompted a few of my friends to get in touch, but most remembered on their own, for the first time ever.
There was even a card from my father – who has never previously known the day or year of my birth! Some messages straggled in late, but almost everyone I care about got in touch.
We went to a restaurant for sushi and I made a cake:
Later in the evening the children were both busy with and waved vaguely when I headed to the pub to see friends.
Several lovely people turned up to wish me well in this strange new age. Talk around the table inevitably turned toward the relative merits of Cambridge, and a persistent desire (felt by everyone in the group, perhaps most acutely by yours truly) to move to London.
Jean asserted that Cambridge can grow on a person if you give it four, five, six years…. Hmm.
Grow like moss? Dry rot? Living in this town is a lot like spending your whole life in a doctors waiting room.
I have lots of friends and like the place, but I still yearn for city life. I grew up in a small town and I’ve been looking for anonymity ever since. I told him he was promoting revisionist history, particularly since he has keys to a flat in London.
Byron and Jean decided to be frat boys and practiced for a good long time:
I told many of my favorite stories to friends who had never heard them before (and in the case of Coffey or Nikolai, perhaps did not anticipate the extent of the potential chaos when agreeing to have drinks in a pub).
Sally decided to cause trouble and there weren’t many opportunities on offer so she convinced the boys playing music in the front of the pub to drag me up on their makeshift stage for birthday wishes.
She said I know you might stop talking to me-
I interrupted to say Oh no, I’ll do something worse!
But it still happened over my protests.
I stood with my arms crossed as the band sang Rocky Raccoon and my friends clustered in front, laughing uproariously. I wondered if the song was a good omen or poor, given my history. One of the musicians took a photo on his mobile phone and shouted at the crowd Who has Bee’s number?
Of course, nobody in the crowd did; my anti-telephone habit is still deeply entrenched even if I have been practicing.
Jean drawled That is a novel way to get a girl’s number!
The next day my mother arrived to celebrate my birth and spend time with her grandchildren; we had a lovely dinner and then I had to dash off to London to do interviews. I went out for another birthday dinner with Iain, Xtina, and Susan.
Then of course drinks with David, who knew me at age thirteen and continues to amuse and amaze. I showed him one of the UK book jackets (there will be more than one – that is another story altogether) featuring a photo of me as a troubled youth, complete with slashed eyelid – though everyone who looks at it now insists they can’t see the scar.
The whole table cooed over the image but I said Would you want a photograph of yourself at seventeen staring out from store shelves?
David laughed and agreed with me. Though I do agree that it is a good cover.
Dinner with the East London Massive was predictably hilarious. One of the crew hit on the waitress, who invented a boyfriend on the spot. We took bets on her accent and nobody guessed correctly: Baltimore! I put my hands on my cheeks and said Lots of my favorite people live there. I love your Christmas lights!
The youngsters kept ordering alcohol in sets of three – wine, beer, and cocktails. I am too wise for such antics but somehow they managed to get me to drink two glasses of something orange, on the pretext of toasting….. whatever we’re celebrating this week.
At four in the morning I crawled into a hotel bed, knowing that I would have to be in a taxi dashing to the airport at six – and that I had not yet packed.
Now I’m in the south of France with no plans to do anything at all for an entire week. Holidays have never suited me but I have high hopes that I can learn.
This birthday was the twenty-fourth anniversary of my terminal cancer diagnosis.
I am so incredibly lucky.