Really Good, Actually(87)
Birthday Messages I Did Not Particularly Wish to Receive
At & A HARD PLACE Training Center, our climbers are family. Which is why we were so excited to hear you’ve rappelled into another year! Come in any time today and get a Nutrition Ball, Protein Shot, or Grass Powder Top-Up, on us. And don’t forget to keep on . . . Rockin’!!
heyyyy girlie! i know we haven’t kept in touch since high school days, but i wanted to say happy thirtieth, because i know this can be an intense birthday, and it looks from IG like you’ve had a hard year. i hope you have as great a day as possible, and if you want any info about how you can double your income from home next year, let me know! i’m part of a badass community of momtrepreneurs i think you’d totally dig . . . sending love and light ?
● HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MARGARET ● THANK YOU FOR BEING PART OF THE TL BANK FAMILY ● AVAILABLE BALANCE: $135.33 ●
Maggie , NANA here on email!!! - Wishing you a very PLEASANT birthday today , with a reminder to please TRY NOt to get any tattoos.! here is a LInk your mother sent me to a very cheering article in the NEW YORK TIMES about a young Lady who found a new career by going to computer school,. Something to CONSIDER-? Love , NANA
HOLLA AT A GEM KWEEEEN—To celebrate your big day (and Gemini SZN in general!), here’s a list of famous figures who share your star sign, including Sir Ian McKellen and most serial killers! Much love from your pals at DailyAstroz
happy birthday amiga, hope your gr8 :P let me know if ur out later . . . it’s calvin, ps
“Seven Ways You Didn’t Know You Could Use Birthday Cake (And One Way You Probably Did)”—HBD from 6Bites!
Hi Maggie, Thanks for your inquiry regarding IPL hair removal. Unfortunately, people with your complexion are not candidates for this treatment, as your hair and skin are too fair for the laser to do its job correctly. A shame, as redheads also have some of the coarsest hair types :( But it’s not all bad news: Stripp’d Wax Bar offers 15% off Birthday Brazilians! Let us know if you want to book in to make this your smoothest birthday yet! Xoxoxo
Olivia tells me it’s your birthday, so just wanted to say: medically speaking, muscle atrophy begins at thirty. Have a good one. Jiro
Chapter 21
The morning of my thirtieth was brisk and bright. I decided to “start the decade right” by going for a run, but ended up taking a light stroll around my neighborhood in full fitness attire. Hannah sent flowers, and my mother called and gave her traditional speech about the rigors of childbirth, and I gave my traditional thanks for her efforts and my life. She told me one day I’d know what she was talking about, and I said, “I don’t think so,” and she said, “You’ll change your mind.” Ten minutes later my father called, and we repeated the interaction almost word for word, minus the focus on vaginal tearing. I wondered if Jon would get in touch.
I showered and brushed my hair and looked at my face in the mirror, which prompted the ordering of a new ointment, some French thing that the internet said would either burn my skin off or make it perfect. In a small show of restraint, I did not even click on the suggested accompanying purchase, an expensive mucus from Japan that I wanted incredibly badly. I tidied my room and made plans to get some things framed, thinking, women in their thirties own things that are framed.
I went to the grocery store and picked up ingredients for the dinner party we were having. Amy had wanted to roast a chicken (“It’s the most casually grown-up dinner there is!”), but I was trying to be a proper vegetarian, so we were having spaghetti and garlic bread and a big Caesar salad, like a family in an after-school special.
Having lost the battle over the menu, Amy had insisted on being allowed to do a “tablescape,” covering the rickety wooden table she’d inherited from her parents with an old sheet, then covering that with an array of items from other parts of the apartment: old candlesticks, crystals, some dried flowers, etc. I’d been skeptical while she was doing it, but when she stood back, made a few final adjustments to some leaves and the twinkle lights she’d nested around them, there was no denying it was gorgeous.
“Guess where I got the idea,” said Amy. “Reese Witherspoon.”
Living with Amy was surprisingly great. She was tidy and considerate and had her dad’s Netflix password. Our only real argument had been over a gigantic poster she bought without consulting me, a black-and-white print of a female surfer silhouetted against a crashing wave, with the words i need the sea because it teaches me written in the sky above her. (“Do you surf?” I’d asked. “No,” she’d said, “but I feel like I do.”) I lost the argument, and now it was in the kitchen, on a big patch of wall next to the fridge. Lauren made a privately sarcastic face at me about it when she walked in. Emotional Lauren told Amy she thought it was “important to think about the ocean sometimes.” Amy agreed.
The apartment’s air-conditioning system comprised two boxes perilously installed in our respective bedroom windows, so by the time Amirah and Clive arrived, the kitchen was incredibly warm. Amy looked dewy and gorgeous, moving breezily between the pasta on the stove, the bread in the oven, and the light, zippy salad she’d put in an enormous bowl I’d never seen before, magicked out of a back cupboard.
I was not faring so well. Having blow-dried my hair for the occasion, I’d already been forced to gather it in a high, crumpled bun to stop the strands sticking to my neck.