Yesterday was my birthday. My body decided to give me the gift of youth: cystic acne. I felt like a teenager again. The angsty kind.
I did not want the day to end because now I have to wait another year for people to have to be nice to me again.
I share a March 21 birthday with Twitter, Santana and the first full day of Spring.  It was also the date of my very first half marathon last year. That race feels like it was yesterday. I remember every second of it so well (although I suppose blogging it makes the memory stick) and I don’t understand how an entire year has already passed.
While I celebrated my 27th by running 13.1 miles through my city . . .
. . . I did 28 with a bit more style.
Oops! Not the style I intended. And for some reason, everyone around me and my cousin seems totally oblivious to our nudity.
Anyway, like I said, a bit more style . . .
. . . And a lot more booze.
I love my birthday. I titled the Facebook invite for this “At Which Everyone Pays Attention to Dori” because that is exactly what my birthday is: a day where everyone has to pay attention to me, be nice to me, put drinks in front of me and just overall make me feel special. I am uncomfortable and anxious in groups of people I don’t know, and I tend to avoid blogger meetups and other social situations for this reason. But with people I love? I am totally in my element being the center of attention. And since my party was on a Saturday and my birthday on a Monday, I got to experience a nice, long celebration with me at the center. Hence my post-birthday blues.
It is also an interesting time because while I don’t have many friends, I do have one or two from all different aspects of my life. So at my party, I had two friends from first grade, one from my Israel trip, three from blogging/Twitter, one from my old job, my cousin, my um — friend McGriddle, my roommate, my roommate’s sister and some of their guests. I was a little worried that I’d feel spread thin, trying to make time for everyone, or that no one would really talk to each other.
Turns out I had nothing to worry about.
I am so happy and so touched that all my friends from different places meshed so well. Everyone was comfortable talking to everyone else. No one was shy. No one stuck to only those they know. I wanted to cry from happiness when I saw my friends from many different places all together like this:
Left to right: Missy (Israel trip), Melissa (blogging), Ben (Twitter/running/blogging), Emily (first grade), Luis (my old job) and Rae (first grade).
And by the way, only Ben could stay out with me until 1 am for my birthday and then PR in the NYC Half Marathon at 1:42:24 early the following morning. And only Michelle would tolerate living in a 320-square foot apartment with no living room, no closets and ME for exactly five years as of March 20.
And why would Emily would bring a foam roller to a bar‽
Who knows?
I love my friends.
I am so fortunate to have such amazing people in my life who not only come out to support me, but who are so wonderful that they get along so well with people who are also important to me. To me, this is a sign that I choose my friends well.
I was too shy to tell anyone at work it was my birthday, but it was also someone else’s birthday, so I got to go into the kitchen after they celebrated and eat a leftover slice of his cake.
Thank you for indulging me in this overwhelmingly Dori-centric post. One last self-absorbed item: My newest post on NBC New York: Dori’s Quest: barre3: Will the West Coast Phenomenon Hit New York City.
I am sad I have to wait another 365 days — wait, is it a leap year? 366 days — until I can get this type of attention again. Do you love your birthday like I do? Hate it? Ambivalent? Tell me why!