Today is my birthday. Technically. That is, it is definitely my birthday following the urban dictionary definition, which, in my opinion and yours soon, is the most accurate available. But it doesn’t feel like my birthday, as really nothing birthday-ey is happening today. It did feel like my birthday on Saturday at the Blue Water Café where, emboldened by a big birthday bottle from Barossa, I celebrated my survival to-date by eating a death-defying quantity of seafood.
My birthday meal isn’t actually the point of today’s reflections, although I will give you a quick play-by-play: I launched into the commemoration of my birth with six colossal prawns served on a wintry field of ice. These were truly sub-zero and came with a kick-ass cocktail sauce, into which I plunged each prawn like a fearless diver hunting horseradish pearls. All the while silently observing the unspoken ontological conundrum at hand, I then ordered and devoured in its entirety a one-pound lobster poached in a buttery vegetable broth, which I think the waiter may have called a Béarnaise. (If he did, he both mispronounced the word and mislabeled the dish, as there was definitely no egg in the sauce. It is also possible that he mumbled a more accurate description or that I’m going deaf as a result of the very phenomenon under consideration, my advanced age.) My merry-making matured with two macarons, offered to me by Blue Water for my birthday free-of-charge, or, if you will, for nearly 300 dollars with tip. In an act of adult austerity, I chose to forego the $18 glass of ice wine which I coveted briefly, but drank an almost identical product later, frugally obtained by me as a birthday gift. The meal was truly delightful and I’m considering getting a tattoo to remember it by.
Today, however, I have only the memory of weekend seafood to rejoice, as, having agreed to celebrate my birthday on Saturday, no honors are being bestowed on me today. Furthermore, as a result of my impressive 29-year-old wisdom and sense of responsibility, I am suppressing my birthday-driven urge to eat an entire cake and instead adopting a strict, temporary, emergency calorie-reduced, low-carbohydrate diet. I’m doing this for two reasons (well, for one overarching reason, for which there are two reasons). The overarching reason is I have gained two pounds, and I have long had an official policy of requiring of myself adherence to a calorie-restricted diet at a specific benchmark of x +2 lbs, where x equals my preferred weight, also in pounds. As a 29-year-old, let me recommend this policy to all of you. Assuming a 500-calorie deficit per day- the upper limit in my opinion- it takes two weeks to lose two pounds. At 29, I have no trouble looking ahead two weeks; however, I still have trouble meditating on a period of five weeks, which is how long it would take to lose five pounds. (Besides, a five pound weight gain- c'est le bordel.)
The reason I have gained two pounds are 1) I hurt my back lifting weights last Saturday and a tragic handicap forebade my use of the trusty Chocolate Time Machine for a whole 8 days, and 2) the week before the injury I was fatefully introduced to the Big Cupcake at Vancouver’s Cupcakes, which are, if you will excuse on my part a brief regression, fucking awesome. It’s funny, because I had no use for the Big Cupcake until I stuck it, totally by chance, into the freezer, where the icing took on the very texture I had always fruitlessly demanded of cereal marshmallows and the whole thing started to taste like the Lucky Charms of my dreams. As a result, though I was initially a passive, blameless victim of the Big Cupcake (which I received at an office party honoring my birthday and other work-people born in July), I actually went to Cupcakes of my own volition and asked for a Big Cupcake just like the one I got as a gift (chocolate cake, with yellow buttercream icing). They didn’t have any, so I reluctantly took a smaller, plain chocolate cupcake and ate it while mourning the other one.
For me, at 29 as always, not working out for eight days and eating one Big Cupcake and one Regular Cupcake easily translates to two extra pounds. Thus, instead of making myself a huge birthday cake today, I am going to go on a diet for two weeks and then make a cake on July 18, the exact date on which my BMI shall be certainly and joyously reduced from 18.8 to 18.5. I promise to tell you all about it!
So, a Very Merry Un-Birthday to moi! Please enjoy this cupcake on my behalf, as I’m late to catch the next departure of the Cocoa Delorean.
29 down and x to go!
happy happy birthday to you, to you!!!!!
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