The Milla Times Journal

who knew a birthday could be dragged out for months? it’s the kind of fixation that’s only appropriate when one’s turning 21, not 30. or maybe that kind of fixation is never appropriate. in any case, i’ll stop with the birthday bonanza after this post. by now, i’ve made peace with my twenties and have already put both feet into being thirtysomething. the view from up here is different.

well, not really, but there are a few things that thirty means to me. primarily, it means that it’s time to quit being the go-with-the-flow girl. not that i’m to become inflexible, but the carefree attitude that’s characteristic of the twenties -- where you can float for years in crap jobs and mediocre relationships -- is something to kiss goodbye.

my (slightly) older girlfriends have given me the wisest advice on the matter, saying that this is the time to start fermenting plans and building a sound foundation for achieving them. this is the time to discern the outline of a future that suits me and start steadying toward it, because it will take years before it looks just right.

and to think i once didn’t believe in making plans, figuring everything will work out just as it should. to make g-d laugh, tell him your plans, har har. he has a plan for each of us, har har. bull-fucking-shit. what a copout. it’s lazy, existential drivel -- the twentysomething “i’ll let the wind carry me to my destiny” attitude one takes when she’s goalless and clueless.

i know i’ve spent enough time wallowing in that romantic ideal, where everything happens for a reason and life is one great search for meaning, with some absolute truth awaiting discovery. whatevs. we make our own meaning, our luck, our destiny, our reason.

to recognize that it’s all meaningless has been remarkably liberating, i gotta say. there’s no ultimate answer to subscribe to, no limitation to accommodate. finally, the search ends through forfeit! i wasted enough time on it as is.

where the hell was i going again? oh yeah, my list of things to focus on in the next ten years. i have a feeling these years will pass rather quickly and be less eventful than the last ten were. even in the last few years, life has turned rather monotonous: i’ve finished all the schooling i’ll ever need, have a steady job i have no reason to leave and, at a mere two and a half years, i’ve lived at my current residence longer than i’ve lived at any other residence that came before it, save my childhood home.

as someone who’s inherently restless, i get uneasy by a lack of flux. i need stimulation and newness and adventure to keep my senses engaged. but i’m trying to reprogram my thinking to see the stability as something positive, where i have my basic needs met and can focus on creating controlled adventures that still enliven. i certainly don’t care to return to the days of “find a new job because you’ve just been laid off... again” or “find a new apartment because you’ve just been evicted!”

yeah, that wasn’t much fun at the time, invigorating as it may have been. future adventures should be far more adult, as the following list demonstrates:

• have a kid! maybe even two (three tops). maybe this won’t play out completely perfectly, maybe you’ll need to visit the sperm bank when you hit your “scary age” but have a kid at some point, even if it’s just one, because from the outside, parenthood looks interesting, exhausting, otherworldly and definitely worth knowing.
• don’t get married just to have a kid or just to be married. honor the promise you made to yourself regarding marriage -- that you’ll do it only if it feels absolutely right in your bones, your blood and your brain. and even then reconsider.
• write a friggin book! or two or ten. find the time and discipline and just write already. potential without action is worthless. publish or perish, bitch.
• quit being negative. we’ve gone over this before.
• recognize that everything that’s happened up to this moment, whether good or bad, is not as important as what happens after this moment. remind yourself every day that the past does not have to impact the future.
• get better at buying your own bullshit if you expect other people to.
• buy some property. g-d ain’t making any more real estate. and then sell the property. paper equity is not as good as money in the bank.
• dogs. have more.
• all that adult shit that your pops has been telling you about for years -- saving for retirement, insuring everything, maintaining good credit -- subscribe to it. also, eradicate all student debt by 40.
• prepare for deaths in the family. you aren’t the only one who’s aging.
• don’t bother with people you don’t care for, tasks you don’t need to do and situations you’d rather not be in. you have the freedom to politely excuse yourself from all of them. up until you have that kid, your greatest obligation is to yourself.

now go get ’em, tiger.

Labels: birthday, thirty

well, the world didn't end. thirty arrived on june 26 and incorporated itself rather seamlessly. no great fireworks or traumas or parades. it came, sat down with me for a drink and recessed into the laugh lines around my mouth -- the only wrinkles i enjoy since they reflect happy smiles.

the happy smile was much displayed during my annual birthday party, which drew the usual crowd of suspects, commemorated in the photo essay that follows. thanks to those who showed and brought gifts and booze and warm wishes. i felt loved.


Dirty Thirty: that was the title of this year's bash, and my architect superstar boyfriend Mo drew a handy floor plan on the dry erase for newcomers.


balloons & booze: the party was largely confined to my backyard and stocked with libations. my drink of choice for the night was vodka and red bull.


happy smile: happy dirty thirty to me.


the view from above: my birthday wish was to quit smoking forever. the monday after my party i awoke with strep throat and haven't had a cigarette since.


revelers: dan, kate, nick and jason cheese it up for the camera.


my future bridesmaids: twas a momentous occasion as Dee and Raidis, my longtime girlfriends, met each other for the first time. i must have a thing for ethnic, dark-haired beauties.


more ethnic, dark-haired beauties: Lacey and Michelle


chin on palm: Chad indulges in fascinating conversation with Tim as Polly looks on.


sorta sepia: Juan and I indulge in our own fascinating conversation in the corner.


you are getting sleepy: Juice got baked like the rest of us.


strike a pose: in an effort to not take the standard smiley picture, Jayson and I make the standard non-smiley faces.


festive brights: Mo inflated every last balloon before stringing them above the yard. then he gave me a special edition box set of all 6 seasons of "Sex and the City." and he helped me clean the morning after the party. i returned the kindness by not taking a single picture of him the night of the party.


blame the booze: there was enough for leftovers.


ok, found one: Mo and Dan talking trash by the trash.


going quietly: what 30 looked like after a few drinks.


it could be food! juice eyes the prized fortune Zee pulled out of her fortune cookie.


coolest guy ever: Nick is tops.


Juice agrees: the furry baby enjoys some mid-party playtime.


shiny happy: Niaz, Michelle, Kevin and Willow


the medication must be working! alien hand dave left his alien hand at home this time.


inner photo: KT and Zee in the doorjamb.


comedy in the hammock: Casey, Raidis and Ann catching a laugh.


more revelers: still reveling.


dang, i got a lot of teeth: thirty's alright.

thanks to everyone who came.

Labels: birthday, parties, thirty

thirty looked different at twenty. it certainly looked much older than it feels today, and i'm very thankful i’m not turning twenty this year. that was a sweet enough time when life seemed so limitless and people seemed so genuine, but it was also a big waste of time, because people in their early twenties are a total waste of cells.

i certainly was, strutting around as I did, convinced i had already unlocked the mysteries of the universe when i was still figuring out how to do my laundry properly, perplexed every time a wool sweater shrank in the wash. those were the salad days, when i could subsist on a diet of coffee and cigarettes and think nothing of the way i was ruining my credit. ten years and twenty pounds ago.

if i could talk to my 20-year-old self today, i’d give her a good shake and smack -- and a long hug, though she'd probably fight me off. she was a bit angry then, capable of mega-bitchiness, and wholly convinced of her immortality and infallibility. she could have never conceived of the minefields and piles of quicksand that she would encounter, the obstacles needed to humble her.

not that my twenties were so horrible, but they had their mania and moments of despair. i changed cities a few times, must have lived in ten different apartments, gone through numerous jobs, boyfriends and paradigms. it was like a decade-long coming-of-age film that i've surely romanticized in being something better than it was.

i know i won't miss my twenties, as i spent most of that time being poor, confused, anxious and fearful. sometimes i cook it up to be something so pure, an age of innocence even in its anguish, but when i go deeper and remember my excesses and missteps, the many nights of lying awake wondering what will become of me, i am so thankful a new demographic is here to wipe my slate.

but if i had that coveted hindsight to do it again, the opportunity to give my 20-year-old self the shake, smack and hug i needed, my stubborn ass probably still wouldn't have listened. perhaps if i stabbed her and wrote the following in blood, it might have gotten her attention:

• quit smoking. it's doesn't look so cool, especially in california, and it makes you smell bad.
• calm the fuck down. you'll waste so much time trying to be tough, independent and self-assured that you'll forget how to be yourself. i know that's who you want to be, but that’s not who you truly are. you’re sensitive, insecure and needy, and you’ll still be that way at 30. get used to yourself and know that it's ok to be vulnerable. it doesn't mean that you're weak, only that you're human.
• be nicer to your parents. they have been so good to you.
• in general: eat more bran, take better care of your skin, never drive drunk, use condoms every time, exercise more, whine less.
• at 23, you'll fall madly in love and be persuaded to leave San Francisco just as you begin to enjoy your life there. don't move back to LA for this man; make him move north instead. a few years later, you'll have the opportunity to attend NYU for grad school. GO!
• trust your instincts more than your heart.
• cherish your friends. they are even more important than you already think they are.
• your writing is atrocious now, but keep trying, though avoid writing poetry altogether. you’ll also keep a blog in your later twenties. it will be a cheap 'sex and the city' ripoff that will amuse your friends and cause you occasional embarassment and intruige.
• don’t skimp on personal hygiene products, coffee, the perfect gift for someone else, a good mattress, a good haircut, sushi.
• on men: give up the fairytale. your happy ending is not guaranteed. it's work and you will make mistakes, but you'll keep trying because you are a romantic at heart. and you won't be married with kids by 30 like you think, but that's ok because you will still like your life.
• don't worry so much. nothing is insurmountable.
• there's more that i'll need to tell you offline -- additional stuff on men, about drugs, and the self-destructive and depressive tendencies you'll be grappling with always. some mistakes you'll need to make; others you don't need to make twice. when you finally know better, do the right thing.
• talk less, listen more. swallow your pride sometimes. stay out of your own way. trust life to take care of you.

now go get 'em, tiger.

Labels: birthday, thirty

it could be worse. i could be turning sixty, i suppose. thirty is definitely still young, relativism aside and included. lots of energy left; i’m ambulatory and alive. health, family, friends, security and self-esteem. good stuff in there. no need for this birthday to latch onto my radar like this, but i must confess that it’s thrown me into a Huckabees-esque existential conundrum.

i thought it wouldn’t matter so much, that the turn of the decade would pass through me seamlessly. but i find myself in funkytown lately, unhappy with father time. i hear people around me saying “embrace it” and “be thankful your twenties are over” and “better stuff lies ahead.” and i believe all of that. yet still. still.

thirty’s a bit heavy. i’m taking inventory and coming up short. i’m realizing that i’m still far from the person i’d like to be. i find myself drifting into the fantasyland of where i thought i’d be by now, but am not. and i can’t seem to reconcile the discrepancy. my father always tells me, “it takes a lot to make you happy.” perhaps he’s right.

i know that two years from now, turning thirty will seem as insignificant as turning 28 did two years ago. i know that the grand scheme of life will forget this thirtieth birthday and scoff at the anxiety it’s caused. it’s only as big a deal as i make it. the problem is my attitude, not my age.

the problem is that my crappy genetics had me sprouting gray hair at 19, meaning that i have to color my hair every 6 weeks, otherwise it would look all salt and pepper. the problem is that when i told a coworker about my upcoming birthday (this June 26), she guessed that i would be turning 33, meaning i probably look much older and she tried to underestimate my age to be kind. the problem is that i can no longer fall into the “cute” category anymore, given my gray hair, laugh lines and crows feet.

it sucks that in the twenties, one is “maturing” and “growing,” though once thirty comes, it’s only downhill “aging.” it sucks that my body is already beginning its decay, given my cervical cancer scare last summer, to which my older girlfriend Dee remarked, “welcome to your thirties.” and – i gotta say it -- it sucks that it’s different for men and women.

could i possibly complain anymore? yep, i can and will. this is the first post in a multipart series chronicling my thirtieth birthday.

Labels: birthday, thirty