35 years and 364 days

Why shouldn’t I be the neurotic brunette wiping my sweaty ass print off the pleather chair at this bar?

PULP!!! Omg hi! You know those anxiety nightmares* in which you suddenly remember you have a baby but you can’t remember where you put it??? I’ve had so many variations of this dream, but by far the most memorable is when I woke up in a cold sweat thinking that I was supposed to be breast feeding my neighbors’ dachshunds while they were out of town.**

Anyways, that’s a little bit how I woke up feeling today about this Substack. At least my laptop doesn’t have teeth — ouch!

Speaking of babies, today I am 35 years and 364 days old. A dual reminder that I was once a doe-eyed infant and that my mid-30s look nothing like I thought they would, though even reflecting on that in this moment I’m not sure I ever imagined this time in my life? I mean, there was the time my mom asked me over sushi what I wanted to be when I grew up and I said, “Courtney Cox,” but I can’t quite wrap my mind around any visions of myself at this age as me.

Naturally, at 11, you don’t really think about 35, and certainly not THIRTY SIX. It seems so foreign, so abstract, I guess uhhh because it is! In that way, 1999 is no different from 2024. Since my psychic powers have so far only proven helpful in occasionally getting the Wordle right on the first try, I don’t know where I’ll be at 45, 50, or if I’m so lucky, 73. At this rate, I don’t know where I’ll be at 37. All I (or any of us!) can do is find ways to fall in love with the day to day and all I can ask is that what lies ahead is simply unimaginable for all the right reasons. I do know that I’m grateful to be here and that I have no shame in wanting MORE, MORE, MORE! (Astrology tells me that I’m allowed to be grandiose and self-indulgent because I was born on a full moon and that is exactly why I love astrology.)

In the spirit of living for the everyday, I’ve been inviting myself to leave the apartment more often and on most occasions, I say yes. Little things in little ways. When the years stack up and I start to feel lost under the weight, or feel the pressure build around what I think I’m supposed to be doing, I go outside.

Last week, I was sitting at a little sidewalk table on Sunset, patting myself on the back for sipping a ginger shot over a glass of wine (happy to text my address if you’d like to send a medal) when I remembered how important it is to be in the world. Not in a “take me to the French Riviera” way (though that is an option if you’re interested), but in a “walk around your fucking neighborhood way.” I’d toted a book in my purse and started reading only to keep looking up every 30 seconds to see who filled THAT pair of shoes (ugly), who had a “big photo shoot that’s gonna take the whole day, STEPHANIE!!!,” and which server at the trendy restaurant next door was vehemently refusing to go to the hospital mid-shift, “I told you, Michael, I’m fucking fine!” Ah, the beauty of being ALIVE.

There are 8 billion other people here and we all get to take turns being seen, or, uh, overheard anyways. When I feel anxiety around being perceived, I find it comforting to remember we’re all just shuffling around existing and it’s always someone’s turn to be witnessed. Why shouldn’t I be the neurotic brunette wiping my sweaty ass print off the pleather chair at this bar???

Maybe THIS is what 36 is — being witnessed with an open heart and many soggy napkins under my thighs! MR. DEMILLE, I’M READY FOR MY CLOSEUP!

To celebrate the pending anniversary of my mother spending 45 hours in labor while my dad fell asleep in a chair (“WELL SORRY I WAS TIRED FROM WORKING CONSTRUCTION ALL WEEK!”), here are a few wholesome birthday memories from The Early Years.

ONE! Fittingly, this was not only my first birthday party, but also my first Budweiser and my first time milking a doting audience for laughs.

THREE! Lest I ever lose my White Trash street cred, my first Hooters t-shirt:

FOUR! It is important to me that any younger friends know McDonald’s basically used to be a fine dining establishment. Look at these ornate partitions! I also spy a Barbie suitcase that would eventually go on to house a LOT of horny barbies.

SEVEN! My first sleepover followed by a full day as a Junior Zookeeper! My identity as someone who will open-mouth kiss JTT through a TV screen and wax poetic about an anteater all in the same 24 hours really starts to take shape here and I think that’s worth noting.

EIGHT! My family threw a classic bowling alley party and I made an…enemy? Joke’s on her because I don’t remember her name, but I DO remember this Lisa Frank notebook and getting four different copies of the Tracy Chapman New Beginning CD. “Give me one reason” not to smack this girl!

Birthday luck briefly faltered at 9 when Princess Diana died the morning of my ice skating party—you’ll be shocked to hear that, while vaguely sad, I cared less about that and more about everyone being a bummer on my big day—and then Rachel ran over my index finger with her skate blade. This was a notable time for tears on the whole, and I do tend to carry on this tradition with an annual birthday cry.

10 bounced back as a Spice World singalong sleepover with the few friends I’d managed to make when we first moved to Virginia. I’d asked my mom for a Spice Girls cake but the bakery couldn’t do it so she cut out a cardboard picture of them and stuck it in the icing, a move I was of course humiliated by at the time because children are often stupid and lacking perspective.

Thankfully, at 35 years and 364 days, I am now perpetually smart and empathetic and NEVER short-sighted or ungrateful. And well, seeing as how I’m already perfect, it’s a little difficult for me to make this ask, but I would love to close out this Pulp revival by hearing any wishes / advice / love / curses for 36 in the comments! Or you know, just text me for my address and I’ll await my many medals.

Love you!

*Truly the only kind my brain knows how to make.

**Wait…I think I’m gonna do an unhinged public dream journal??? Stay tuned.