Best Birthday Get-Together

The idea was that it was going to be a Birthday Get-Together. But it pretty much wound up being a Birthday Party, there was nothing I could do about it. Being the person having the birthday is a lot of work, so the photography situation was handled by Lexia Snow and Ashley Furst.

I spent the first portion of the party in the kitchen making guacamole, with frequent help from people like Tina (who's head you can see in the background.)



If you got to the party early enough, I gave you a job. For example, Sariah got to wash the dishes while I scrubbed the toilet, Laura assembled my Swiffer Duster, Jenna and Tina had to figure out exactly how small I wanted my onions chopped, and, as seen here, Amber was placed in charge of an arts and crafts task that never made it onto the wall (for want of sticky-tack, not for lack of perfectly straight edges)



Elna Baker, before she made the party her private Internet Cafe (just playin', Elna)



Richie. Usually he doesn't look like this.



But Bryant usually looks like this.



Jen and Jenna tend to look like this.



Apparently heads just aren't a very hot subject for party photography these days, because this is supposed to be Ryan.



And this is supposed to be Bryant talking with Emily.



But, seriously, had Jason's head been left out of this photo, I would have had some strong words for Lexia.



Ah yes, Lauren Patricia Laura and Lexia.



I choose for this photo to show that Dave, Emily's head, and Jeff Mulcock were, in fact, at my party. And that Elna got her email taken care of for the week (just playin', Elna).



And I choose for this photo to show why the girls are always talking about Ryan Barnhart.



Still working on the guacamole. What? You expect the peppers and garlic to roast themselves?



For a while now I've been wanting to premiere my Thomas the Tank-Engine Table here on the blog. I found it on 6th Avenue either waiting for a bus or sitting in the trash (so hard to tell) like a month or so ago. A strong helper was in the neighborhood, so we carried it back to my place and now I finally have a place to keep, well, everything, as you can see here.



The futon had a two-conversation minimum at all times.



When I got my camera back at the end of the evening it was full of about 300 pictures like this one that Lexia and Patricia had taken of themselves.



It was really hard on Patricia when she realized how enormous my arm was (seriously, why's my arm so huge in this picture? I look like a Rob Liefeld drawing)



But then I tried to make it up to Patricia by letting her co-star in my first truly great photo as a 28-year old.



Meanwhile, in the alternative party universe photographed by Ashley things happened like me sitting on the couch with Amber and Rebekah.



And Ashley and Rebekah posing for a photo. (This was before we all found out that Ashley was going to be a television star. Seriously. I'm not making some lame joke about Ashley being a TV star. Am I allowed to even talk about this? I don't know what rules they have about talking about Latin-American Idol. Crap! Can I even say that?)



And Kurt and Erin hanging out in the kitchen once I was finally out of there.



Ashley with the Enkes. In case you were wondering if I got any awesome birthday presents, Yes, of course I did. But the photographers were so jealous of them that there aren't any photos. Besides, I'm not going to be all "Hey, look at me, look at how great all my presents and cards were", instead, I'm going to be all "Hey, look at me, look how great all my friends are, look at how lucky I was to have such a totally awesome party." Also, muchas gracias to everyone for being fairly well-behaved, I didn't get a single noise complaint from downstairs (or maybe I just couldn't hear my phone?) Oh, and something I didn't take a picture of was that after everyone else had left, Karisa and her parents came by. That part was really fun, too.



Epilogue Just when I thought everything had mellowed and I could go about just being 28, I went over to the Fursts' for Sunday Dinner (big crowd of people enjoying chorizo that tasted as good as Kentucky Fried Chicken) and guess what, a birthday cake made out of all the chocolate and chocolate-based substances available in New York happened. See those 28 candles? They didn't stand a chance against me.



Thanks again to everyone. It was the best. Also, no Firearm update this week. There's no way I can do the infamous Abercrombie issue justice right now.