10 Reasons to Celebrate

10. Aging
In case you haven’t read the most recent entries, I have turned 29 years old. That’s enough of a reason to throw a party. I’m sure that parties have been thrown for lesser causes or reasons, but I can only hope that people haven’t started throwing parties over everyday tasks like putting your bins out or buying a litre of milk. I imagine you couldn’t really sustain an appropriate level of enthusiasm for a ‘bought a loaf of bread party’ either, unless you used the bread you bought to make fairy bread for the party, then your loaf party would have a certain level of self-awareness to make it edgy. A conversation at one such party may unfold like so…

Guest 1  – (picks up a piece of fairy bread and takes a bite) “Hey, so where’s this loaf that we’re celebrating?”
Host – “It’s funny you ask… You’re eating it right now!”
Guest 1 – “No way! That is so ironic.”
Host – “Actually, this isn’t even a party. It’s a dream within a dream.”

I N C E P T I O N

9. Music
I just about always listen to Gold FM or Classic Rock for the simple reason that the bulk (not all) of today’s music is freakin’ ear rape. So when I set myself the task of setting up a playlist for my birthday party, I decided to go all ’80s on it. How ’80s, you ask? Well, pull up a chair and bring a hot beverage, because it’s time for me to drop some knowledge.

So, with the aid of YouTube, I managed to find a clip from Countdown showing what the Top 10 songs were in Australia on August 22, 1982. I was approximately 4 days old at this point in time. At this point I decided that if I really could be that specific, I should try my best to find dates closest to my birthday for each year.

August 14, 1983 – So close!
August 12, 1984 – Little bit further away now, but close enough.
August 4, 1985 – 2 weeks? Come on, Countdown, you’re ruining my epic plans here.
September 14, 1986 – Almost a month. How rude.

Unfortunately, Countdown had ended by the time August, 1987 rolled around. Either way, I had 50 tracks of wildly varying quality to assault people’s senses with. Not a bad start, but once it’s all said and done, it’s 50 songs. Now, another thing I wanted to avoid was repeating certain tracks – LIKE THIS ONE – because it was in everyone’s best interests.

To add to the aural assault, I grabbed the top 29 from 1982. Number 1 was Physical by Olivia Newton John. Number 29 was Only the Lonely by The Motels. Everything in between? Well, some hits, many shits. But this playlist was now 79 songs long of varying levels of awesome and anger-inducing.

The thing about ’80s music is that you need an appropriate, if not exorbitant amount of cheese factor. But then you need to find that nice balance of music that people would actually want to listen to at exactly the same time. ’80s music, you contemptible harpy!

8.  Drinking
I’m almost certain that I consumed close to 29 alcoholic beverages the other night. Prior to my European trip in 2008, I wasn’t a drinker at all. Three years on and sometimes I feel like I’m making up for lost time. What’s even more of a wonder is how I managed to drink from 6pm – 3am the other night and not have a hangover. I woke up after several hours sleep feeling almost completely fine. Very strange indeed. Well, actually, I lie somewhat. I felt worse today than I did the day after – some sort of two-day hangover effect that I haven’t felt since workplace Christmas parties.

7. Boxer Briefs
Seriously, I haven’t switched back to underpants or boxer shorts since wearing these. Bless ’em.

6. T-Shirts
Those of you that know me well enough know how much I love my t-shirts. Random? Check. Nerdy? Check. The second venue we drank at last night, I even managed to strike up a friendship with one of the bartenders based on the fact that she’s now seen me wear two awesome t-shirts. If that’s not a reason to celebrate, I don’t know what is.

5. Melbourne
Just when you think that Melbourne has nothing more to offer, you hear about or find another place by pure chance. The venue that I held the majority of my celebrations at was one of these places. This city is amazing. (Except for how bloody expensive everything is becoming – boo!)

4. Writing
I’ve been so glad that I’ve managed to maintain this creative venture, even though I only started it earlier this year. The creative process is often quite a horrendous one, but the amount of feedback I’ve gotten from people regarding this blog (Either about the title or the content) has been so overwhelmingly positive that, in turn, made me want to keep producing content, which is all I really need to do at this stage. I don’t even considering this writing so much as it is playtime with words.

3. Friends
Whether you’re high school, uni, work or miscellaneous friends, I love you all dearly. Admittedly, I didn’t get as much time as I would have liked with everyone, but refer to reason 8 for potential reasons why. I’m very blessed to have so many wonderful people in my life and I really do not have any clue as to where I ‘got it right’ to deserve so many awesome friends.

2. Family
Yet again, I am so very blessed to have a wonderful family that has supported me with every success and failure I’ve encountered up to this point. And they’ve somehow managed to put up with me and my various eccentricities all this time as well, which is why they should be showered with praise. And possibly candy.

1. Life
Seriously, when you sit down and try to understand all the ills and wrongs that occur in this world on a daily basis (You could break this down into hourly – heck, minutes – if you really wanted to) it’s almost overwhelming to consider just how helpless we are (or at least feel) in the face of all that we’re up against. So much of our lives is spent trying to avoid ending up like those less fortunate than us that we sometimes lose sight of just how lucky we really are. Sometimes I think capitalism is just a metaphor for pie – you always want a bigger slice, but by the time you get that slice, someone else already has a slice twice the size you do and someone else has an entire pie factory running so smoothly they can get a whole pie whenever they damn well please. So if you’re reading this, celebrate the fact that you’re not as worse off as many others out there.