25

[davidn]

My aunt sent me this. I appreciate the gesture, but I last visited her about twenty years ago and I think she's forgotten that I age.

Today, after what feels like distressingly little time, I'm a quarter of a century old. Most of my year at school had birthdays this week, so it's probably easier to say "Happy birthday" to everyone I know on Facebook and the number of hits will be higher than the misses.

What's happened in the last year? Importantly, I didn't die at 24 like I'd seen in a dream, although I made a pretty decent attempt at it halfway through. And in an example of words coming back to bite you, I've said for a while that I was fine to not have to watch my calories or what I ate as long as I didn't reach 25, the year when everything you've been feeding yourself suddenly starts to matter and you instantly inflate like a rubber dinghy until you start hauling your giant wobbling rear end down to the gym.

Whitney and I held a dessert party yesterday with a couple of people from her work and college, and I made a sticky toffee pudding for it, still the only good thing to come out of Home Economics from the academy. I felt the first sure signs that I was aging then - every time before when I've made it, I've tended to put in a couple of extra scoops of sugar just to make sure it's deadly enough, but this time I was reading through the recipe and saying "Three sticks of butter, are you insane?" There was definitely alarm when we plotted it in Whitney's recipe application and it came out to 34,000 calories, but that was for a double recipe - as it is it's still about 500 to 700 calories per slice, which is about as healthy as diving under a steamroller. And even though she thought we wouldn't have enough, about two thirds of it is still lurking in the fridge - she's going to take it to work tomorrow and hopefully distribute the fat and sugar content among as many people as she possibly can.

Thanks to everyone who's already given me birthday wishes - my own wish is to get better at remembering other people's. I also got a lot of emails at midnight reading "Hello DavidN, We at [forum name here] would like to wish you a happy birthday today!" - including from places I haven't been to in years and can't remember why I even have an account there, like BemaniStyle. It made me realize that I might be online altogether too much.

Comments

[lupineangel.livejournal.com]

Happy birthday man! *gives cake for the dessert party* :D

D.F.

[ikodomoonstrife.livejournal.com]

Happy Birthday! ^^

[just-a-notion.livejournal.com]

Haha, I remember getting those kinds of cards. You don't even like football that much, do you? But you're still a wee boy, so it's obviously appropriate.

[e-to-the-ipi.livejournal.com]

Happy Birthday!

[diarytypething.livejournal.com]

Happy Birthday. There's something about the nature of birthday cards that if they have the name of a type of relative on the front (father, sister, mother-in-law, etc.), then they will have a gender-stereotyped illustration that is vaguely inappropriate for about 95% of the people who might possibly receive it. They're sent by people who fear the [left blank for your own message] cards, to relatives they don't know well enough to decide whether they would prefer something with an artsy photograph or a rude joke, on the logic that it demonstrates that you can at least remember how the two of you are related.

[starfishchris.livejournal.com]

Agreed - you're not the only one who still gets those sorts of cards!

I bake a mean coffee meringue cake (http://www.cookingcoder.com/2009/10/heres-something-i-whipped-up-this-weekend.html) which, while nowhere as fantastically calorific as your creation, is still rather tasty. Unfortunately for me, nobody seems to hold dessert parties.

Oh, and mandatory happy birthday, and all that.

[ern56.livejournal.com]

Happy (belated, now, I suppose. :/) birthday! :)

[shoe--gal.livejournal.com]

Happy Birthday! That sticky toffee pudding sounds goooood.

[billyhicks.livejournal.com]

My Dad likes to get cards saying 'You Are 2' and then draw the other digit next to it in pen. He did it for my 21st back in September, confused me slightly until I realised the Doctoring...

Happy 25th!