these best friends are all mine
it's my birthday.
yesterday, i was told to be ready at five o'clock - meaning i was completely showered, dressed, groomed, and fed by four-thirty. i have a love/hate relationship with surprises, and was consequentially fueled by my juxtaposing excitement & anxiety. matt sat in the easy chair with a mickey and watched me pace around the kitchen, running back to my room to change clothes every so often, flipping my head upside to brush my uber-bouncy hair. finally, at five-thirty [while my dear brother was out making a cigarette run with buddy], erin and kelsey showed up at my door, completely poker-faced, saying: "get in the car."
with raised eyebrows, i did as the said, chattering incessantly from the backseat. they completely ignored me as i went on to say, "... and i'm like i went to the bathroom before i got in the car, because with the way kelsey is driving... well it was better to go then". i was talking so much that kelsey had to swerve the car a few times in a [feeble] attempt to silence me. i just kept talking, asking questions, and they talked quietly to each other. after a few detours [and a lot of screaming and pleading for my life], we ended up at blaire's house - which i thought was shady because there were no cars parked out front.
we get to the door and it takes awhile for blaire to answer. erin and kelsey are finally talking to me, and blaire answers the door completely normally. she welcomes us inside, and her mom says happy birthday, and by this time i'm shaking miserably. we went into the kitchen the counter is piled with junk food of every variety, but i'm so nervous i can't eat anything. everyone was suddenly behaving fine, as if nothing was happening and the mishap in my transportation was not some part of an elaborate plan. i tentatively sit down and nibble at an oreo, when blaire asks me to come to her [clean!] room.
as soon as the door swings open, bryan, meagan, and roxy are flanking dustin, who's holding an already-lit, eighteen-candled cake. in typical nicole-fashion, i scream, run into the laundry room, slam the door behind me, and cry. unfortunately, modern architecture does not support locking mechanisms in laundry rooms, so blaire swings the door open and sandwiches me awkwardly between door and wall. dustin blocks the doorway and everyone is yelling out me to blow out the candles [we were on the brink of a fire department emergency]. i blew out sixteen of them in one beath, and two in the next. dustin told me, "the candles were starting to melt this way, so i tilted the cake that way". haha.
so i'm completely red in the face, shaking, crying, choking out watery laughs, looking at all these amazing people. meagan and bryan made me the most beautiful birthday cake ever; a double-layer, 8" round strawberry cake with bright blue frosting, star-shaped sprinkles, and black lettering that said: "happy 18th birthday nicole!" [dustin tried to share some of the credit]. everyone got excited and made me open my presents, which were all so wonderful, but i'll only mention the dress that kelsey [with blaire's help] got me. it was the dress, the bright yellow one with the black polka dots, and it was so amazing. i got a lot of other great things too, like film [photo-geek alert], bright red lipstick that won't come off for years, and a gigantic card from erin. i stole dustin's keys to fidget with in lieu of crying.
everyone ate pizza and cake and soda and i just sat there and marvelled at everything. meagan cut me a piece of cake and then tried to give it to everyone else ["want some cake?" - "hey, that's mine!"]. reliable as always, miss erin brought twister, so we piled up on blaire's bed and had a twister-competition. being the civilized human beings that we are, no one was able to resist pushing people over in peculiar positions on the mat - just as no one could resist mocking bryan's designated "party shirt" [dustin: did you think you were going to a luau?]. making fun of bryan eventually turned into all of us jumping on him and trying to rip off his clothes with meagan's butterfly knife - we only succeeded in stretching out his collar, though. then we played limbo and i took pictures of everyone, and erin played with my hair and i laid between roxy and dustin and we poked bryan with the limbo stick.
meagan had to take bryan home and eat dinner with her mom, so we said goodbye to them and headed out to hollywood video [i had a craving to see wayne's world]. i found out that everyone had parked around the corner to throw me off - meagan's idea. how very clever. by then i had put on my new dress, and blushed wildly, hiding behind bryan as everyone stared at me and told me i looked cute. blaire, dustin, and i took blaire's car [with the top down, of course], and roxy, erin, and kelsey took roxy's. we raced to the video place [we lost] and then raced to get the movie. erin and dustin bolted into the store and fought over the movie. it was beautiful. on the way back, we took dustin to 19th, and saw a blinking trafficade. so we said, "dustin, go get it!" and he jumped out of the car and threw it in the backseat. then we met back up with the others and dropped dustin at his truck with the trafficade. we drove aroudn the neighborhoods, trying to find someplace to put it, and we found an open garage. so dustin ran out, put the trafficade in the guy's garage, and we drove off [by this time, i was in the car with roxy and the others were with blaire]. roxy and i met dustin at the intersection, and he had to go meet eric at mcdonald's, so he yelled a few things as he was turing right and we were turning left. heh.
so roxy and i decided to loop around and take pecos to mcdonald's [for pie, not for dustin] and got apple pies for everyone. we watched the movie and then snl as we lied around lazily, wanting to sleep. at midnight, we went to ihop and i had the best milkshake ever, even though we were seated next to very annoying kids. when we left, i slapped my id to the window and screamed, very tiredly, that i was eighteen and could now legally have sex with men over the age of eighteen, and then have a post-coital cigarette. it was really just... funny to me. it's funny to me now, because i don't feel any different at all.
that was basically the end of that.
i have the best friends in the world, though. oh man. it was incredible... the whole crew was there [except sean, who had a family reunion] and everyone looked so happy. and i love all of them so much. i can't believe they did all that for me. heh... oh gosh. amazing.
i love you guys sooooo much.
yesterday, i was told to be ready at five o'clock - meaning i was completely showered, dressed, groomed, and fed by four-thirty. i have a love/hate relationship with surprises, and was consequentially fueled by my juxtaposing excitement & anxiety. matt sat in the easy chair with a mickey and watched me pace around the kitchen, running back to my room to change clothes every so often, flipping my head upside to brush my uber-bouncy hair. finally, at five-thirty [while my dear brother was out making a cigarette run with buddy], erin and kelsey showed up at my door, completely poker-faced, saying: "get in the car."
with raised eyebrows, i did as the said, chattering incessantly from the backseat. they completely ignored me as i went on to say, "... and i'm like i went to the bathroom before i got in the car, because with the way kelsey is driving... well it was better to go then". i was talking so much that kelsey had to swerve the car a few times in a [feeble] attempt to silence me. i just kept talking, asking questions, and they talked quietly to each other. after a few detours [and a lot of screaming and pleading for my life], we ended up at blaire's house - which i thought was shady because there were no cars parked out front.
we get to the door and it takes awhile for blaire to answer. erin and kelsey are finally talking to me, and blaire answers the door completely normally. she welcomes us inside, and her mom says happy birthday, and by this time i'm shaking miserably. we went into the kitchen the counter is piled with junk food of every variety, but i'm so nervous i can't eat anything. everyone was suddenly behaving fine, as if nothing was happening and the mishap in my transportation was not some part of an elaborate plan. i tentatively sit down and nibble at an oreo, when blaire asks me to come to her [clean!] room.
as soon as the door swings open, bryan, meagan, and roxy are flanking dustin, who's holding an already-lit, eighteen-candled cake. in typical nicole-fashion, i scream, run into the laundry room, slam the door behind me, and cry. unfortunately, modern architecture does not support locking mechanisms in laundry rooms, so blaire swings the door open and sandwiches me awkwardly between door and wall. dustin blocks the doorway and everyone is yelling out me to blow out the candles [we were on the brink of a fire department emergency]. i blew out sixteen of them in one beath, and two in the next. dustin told me, "the candles were starting to melt this way, so i tilted the cake that way". haha.
so i'm completely red in the face, shaking, crying, choking out watery laughs, looking at all these amazing people. meagan and bryan made me the most beautiful birthday cake ever; a double-layer, 8" round strawberry cake with bright blue frosting, star-shaped sprinkles, and black lettering that said: "happy 18th birthday nicole!" [dustin tried to share some of the credit]. everyone got excited and made me open my presents, which were all so wonderful, but i'll only mention the dress that kelsey [with blaire's help] got me. it was the dress, the bright yellow one with the black polka dots, and it was so amazing. i got a lot of other great things too, like film [photo-geek alert], bright red lipstick that won't come off for years, and a gigantic card from erin. i stole dustin's keys to fidget with in lieu of crying.
everyone ate pizza and cake and soda and i just sat there and marvelled at everything. meagan cut me a piece of cake and then tried to give it to everyone else ["want some cake?" - "hey, that's mine!"]. reliable as always, miss erin brought twister, so we piled up on blaire's bed and had a twister-competition. being the civilized human beings that we are, no one was able to resist pushing people over in peculiar positions on the mat - just as no one could resist mocking bryan's designated "party shirt" [dustin: did you think you were going to a luau?]. making fun of bryan eventually turned into all of us jumping on him and trying to rip off his clothes with meagan's butterfly knife - we only succeeded in stretching out his collar, though. then we played limbo and i took pictures of everyone, and erin played with my hair and i laid between roxy and dustin and we poked bryan with the limbo stick.
meagan had to take bryan home and eat dinner with her mom, so we said goodbye to them and headed out to hollywood video [i had a craving to see wayne's world]. i found out that everyone had parked around the corner to throw me off - meagan's idea. how very clever. by then i had put on my new dress, and blushed wildly, hiding behind bryan as everyone stared at me and told me i looked cute. blaire, dustin, and i took blaire's car [with the top down, of course], and roxy, erin, and kelsey took roxy's. we raced to the video place [we lost] and then raced to get the movie. erin and dustin bolted into the store and fought over the movie. it was beautiful. on the way back, we took dustin to 19th, and saw a blinking trafficade. so we said, "dustin, go get it!" and he jumped out of the car and threw it in the backseat. then we met back up with the others and dropped dustin at his truck with the trafficade. we drove aroudn the neighborhoods, trying to find someplace to put it, and we found an open garage. so dustin ran out, put the trafficade in the guy's garage, and we drove off [by this time, i was in the car with roxy and the others were with blaire]. roxy and i met dustin at the intersection, and he had to go meet eric at mcdonald's, so he yelled a few things as he was turing right and we were turning left. heh.
so roxy and i decided to loop around and take pecos to mcdonald's [for pie, not for dustin] and got apple pies for everyone. we watched the movie and then snl as we lied around lazily, wanting to sleep. at midnight, we went to ihop and i had the best milkshake ever, even though we were seated next to very annoying kids. when we left, i slapped my id to the window and screamed, very tiredly, that i was eighteen and could now legally have sex with men over the age of eighteen, and then have a post-coital cigarette. it was really just... funny to me. it's funny to me now, because i don't feel any different at all.
that was basically the end of that.
i have the best friends in the world, though. oh man. it was incredible... the whole crew was there [except sean, who had a family reunion] and everyone looked so happy. and i love all of them so much. i can't believe they did all that for me. heh... oh gosh. amazing.
i love you guys sooooo much.