A Birthday Lookback
Or Shelby's way of continuing to celebrate her special day like a good Gemini
by All of Us
Being an adult means a few things when it comes to birthdays: Less exciting gifts, but ones that are probably more pricey, friends bailing on your “party” probably because we stopped doing goody bags, probably not even having a party cause you’re so tired all the damn time and right now you can’t see anyone anyway, so why not just drink alone. As the resident Gemini here at ATF (and the creator, so I can really do whatever the hell I want regardless of Zodiac sign), it is only fitting that the first birthday we celebrate is mine. My birthday was on Monday, on Memorial Day which has happened a few times in life, meaning the already limited things to do and places to eat were either already closed or closed for the holiday. We didn’t have many options, and while I turned 26 and my childhood life is officially over, I wouldn’t say this was my worst birthday. So I asked the other ATF ladies to share their infamous birthdays with us here just to continue celebrating. Enjoy!
Shelby’s Birthdays:
Confession: I have a terrible memory. I’d like to think that this started far before my heavy marijuana usage, but that certainly hasn’t helped. I picked out the topic for today’s piece and am the last one writing because I don’t know what to say. I’ve had 26 birthdays at this point and all of them are foggy. However, there are pieces of a few of them that stand out that I’ve somehow remembered.
1) The most dramatic. Probably my thirteenth (maybe twelfth?) birthday, I had a “cooking” party. I have to preface by saying if your party wasn’t themed, you were lame. As a child, the only thing that makes a party work is a theme. So for this cooking party, we started by decorating our own aprons and then made my favorite meal (at the time) which consisted of Caesar salad, spaghetti bolognese, and something for dessert. My mother and her friend, Stacey, saw over us and placed us in stations to help cook the meal. For some reason, my genius mother thought that, seeing as I’m the big girl now, can use the mandolin slicer. If you don’t know what it is, just imagine a cutting board that you hold upright with an EXTREMELY sharp blade just laying in the middle of it. I was slicing onions and, as you all guessed, sliced off part of my right thumb (I do still have a scar—ask to see it). Of course, I panicked, but silently. I very politely excused myself, went into my mother’s spotless powder room, bled out and sobbed as quietly as possible. In my child brain, I knew I needed stitches—this was a wound. I also distinctly remember it taking like 30 minutes before anyone noticed by absence (though it was probably like 7 minutes at most). Finally, my best friend and cousin, Sydney (other Sydney), realized I was missing and found me before she ratted me out and everyone came to see the bleeding, crying, birthday girl. My mother gave me a bandage and I was to continue cutting. I’m pretty sure that finger slice was in the salad….
2) I’ve had two birthdays at the same time as two college graduations: I turned 22 a few days after graduating from my undergrad in 2016 and I turned 25 a few days after getting my Master’s in New York. Having a birthday at the end of May meant never celebrating it at school and also being around important, academic milestones.
3) The other fun thing about having my birthday around Memorial Day was my lifelong best friend and next-door neighbor, Ashleigh, could literally never come to my parties. Her family is huge and gets together frequently, using every holiday as an excuse to grill and have 17 people at the house. Memorial Day was a very important holiday then for them because it really isn’t a great holiday but people are just jazzed about the long weekend. So when my birthday fell on that weekend (or if my party fell on that weekend) Ashleigh would be forbidden to attend because of family in town. Future parents: I guarantee your eleven year old would be way happier and respectful and even appreciative of family time if you let them attend birthday parties.
4) As a millennial child, I had at least two of my own, while attending many more, birthday parties at the radical Build-A-Bear Workshop. I legitimately thought that maybe as an adult I could work at BABW and just live out the rest of the days among the cute babies that couldn’t wait to be stuffed with love and fluff. I also, of course, had at least one birthday party at the infamous Club Libby Lou—see our “People” section below for some more insight into that wonderful company.
Really other than those instances, my birthdays are a haze. I wouldn’t say I’ve ever had a horrifying birthday where something was set on fire or a friend / associate almost died from alcohol poisoning. I just don’t ascribe to that lifestyle to begin with so it only makes sense that my adult birthday “parties” are lame as fuck, just like me. That all being said, I am a fantastic birthday party planner. Zack’s 26th was during quarantine and I detailed in a previous ATF article everything I attempted to make his birthday special in a time of uncertainty and frustration. If I had more friends (and we weren’t in the current global pandemic) I would totally throw more birthday parties. And probably bring back goody bags cause that shit rocked. Maybe I should just start throwing myself birthday parties…
Sydney’s Birthday:
Is anyone here a fan of New Girl? Well, it’s probably one of my top 5 favorite shows. It’s smart, quirky, and damn funny. Well, if you did watch the show, you may remember an episode where the gang celebrates Jess’s birthday. Jess usually spends her birthday alone at the movies because she tends to have too high expectations of her birthday and then she is disappointed. I can RELATE.
Personally, I love birthdays. I love celebrating my friends on the day they were born. I love shopping for the perfect gift. I love making them feel special. I think your birthday is the one day a year where you should get all the attention and do something special! Unfortunately, this never seems to be the case for me. Over the years I’ve started trying to minimize my birthday because I get my hopes up too high and then I am disappointed that it ends up being just like any other day.
While most of my birthdays have been pretty lackluster, there is one birthday that sticks out as the worst of all. It was my 22nd birthday. I didn’t want to do anything crazy, just have dinner with 3 of my best friends at my favorite restaurant in the neighborhood we lived in. Minimal effort on their part, just show up and eat food at a restaurant 5 minutes from their apartment (they lived together). Literally 20 minutes before we were supposed to meet for dinner they texted me saying they were running late because they were at a RuPaul Drag Race viewing party at a local bar.
Whatever, sure, I’ll call and push the reservation 30 minutes. Annoying, but I shouldn’t be surprised. I’m leaving my apartment for the restaurant and they text me again saying they are still at the viewing party and they aren’t sure when they will be done. At this point I am PISSED. Not to get all Stassi on y’all but like...
Of course I break down in tears and text them telling them not to bother coming (but like, in a way that makes it seem like I really don’t care so they don’t feel bad). I am so heartbroken that they’ve chosen to stay at a viewing party for a dumb show than come spend 2 fucking hours with me at dinner on my birthday. I texted another friend (an actually good friend who had already taken me out to a super fancy dinner the weekend before my birthday to celebrate) and he totally came through and got drinks with me later that night.
If you read my piece earlier this week you got a glimpse into my trust issues with friendships. This was another big part of that story, but I wanted to save it for today’s newsletter. When people bail on you, especially when it actually matters, it fucking sucks. With my history of feeling overlooked and cast aside by friendships, this particular situation really hit me hard. I internalized it too, that feeling of abandonment on my birthday, because this past February I had to bail on a friend’s birthday party (for a good reason, but still) and I called him crying and apologetic, feeling like the absolute shittiest person. He was kind and understanding (and totally freaked out that I was crying haha) and that’s why he’s a true friend (hi Stephen). The moral of this story should be don’t cancel on your friend’s on her birthday to watch RuPaul at gay bar in Hell’s Kitchen. She may just write about it on the internet 4 years later.
Here’s a pic of me from my 22nd birthday, wide-eyed and innocent (pre cancellation of birthday plans):
Aimée’s Birthdays:
Anyone who knows me knows that I’ve always been a bit obsessed with my birthday. I’ve been known to celebrate my whole “birthweek,” to plan parties months in advance, and to wear ridiculous sequined outfits to said parties. However, not all of my birthdays have been perfect.
To start, there was my 8th (or maybe 9th? 7th? Definitely thereabouts) birthday, where I threw a hissy fit at a jewelry-making place simply because I had seen Alyssa Yarbrough do that at her birthday party two months before. Lucky for me, my dad and brother caught the whole meltdown on film! Good times. There were also the lame years, where a handful of friends joined me to see Chicken Little (11th birthday) and Bee Movie (13th birthday - yikes) in theaters. Ooh ooh, let’s not forget about my 16th birthday, when I invited a bunch of people I now hate over to my house to play Just Dance and watch the Potter Puppet Pals! Got some great memories out of that one.
But honestly, I’m mainly still salty about my most recent birthday: my 25th. About a year ago, I had this vision to throw myself an epic disco-themed party to celebrate one quarter-century of Aimée existing. I tossed the idea around to some out-of-town friends and relatives, got some legitimate interest, and then decided to make it a reality.
In the end, I had a lot of fun at the party (and I’m forever appreciative to everyone who came—especially those who traveled from elsewhere in the country just for me!!), but it didn’t *quite* match my original vision. What hurts the most is that it was really shaping up to be kind of what I imagined, with more than 30 confirmed guests about a week before the party. Within 48 hours of the party actually happening, though, guests started dropping like flies.
I’m sure many, if not all, of the excuses were valid, but I was still hurt. All I wanted was this big, ridiculous disco party, and it wound up being a much smaller, more casual affair. I received lots of offers for lunch dates “sometime soon,” which was nice, but I would’ve much preferred if they would have just come to my party. In the end, I think nearly half of the guests who attended were actually Mike's friends. I hate it, but this is what was going through my head: if his friends love him enough to go into the city for his girlfriend’s obnoxious birthday party, how the hell must my friends feel about me?
It’s like our generation has this culture of flaking out on things. I think a big part of it is this: no one wants to go to a party unless they know they’re going to enjoy it. If the only person you’re going to know at the party is the birthday girl, that can definitely be an awkward experience. Mike’s friends were all able to come, and they all came together, so they had a built-in comfort blanket of sorts at the party. Some of the people I invited might not have felt as confident that they would have that. I know anxiety is real, and I know everyone leads a tough and busy life (maybe especially here in New York). It just sucks that I put down kind of a lot of money for a 30-person open bar and multiple snack platters that largely went to waste.
Whatever, in the end, I want to focus on the positive. I really did have an awesome time with those who came, and we got some really cute pictures, too. The venue was great, and I’m totally down to go back there sometime just for a fun weekend outing. Also - seriously - no hard feelings to any invitees who couldn’t make it. I can’t really fully control my feelings about the situation, but I do recognize there’s some immaturity and entitlement in them. I think I’m probably old enough at this point where I should cool down my birthday hype a bit. So, here’s hoping all of my future low-key birthday celebrations won’t disappoint!
And, as always, follow our Instagram for cute posts and to help us grow! 👇
Shit We’re Loving: PEOPLE
Shelby’s Pick (okayed by the team of course): Club Libby Lu
*Photo of Sydney (in the purple boa) at her Club Libby Lu birthday party
On today’s episode of SWL, “People” edition, I had to think of something that was birthday related. (In retrospect, this topic probably fits better in the Experience category, but hey, it’s my newsletter so who cares?) We (attempt) to connect our SWL section to the overall theme of the piece—had ya noticed? After an extremely short consideration, I, of course, had to pick a childhood staple. Let’s talk about the best birthday spot for any millennial girl: Club Libby Lu. Generally featured in a back corner of the mall, covered in purple and pink and boas, this safe haven for young girls aged 4 - 12 to be pampered, shop around, and have dance parties, sing songs.
How do I even describe what it was like to have a party (or even attend a party) at Club Libby Lu? If you haven’t been, then I am so sorry, but I will attempt to summarize. The store was basically Claire’s on steroids (which makes sense seeing as it was owned by a former Claire’s executive). There was jewelry, hair accessories, purses, makeup, all that crap for sale, while also doing makeovers and being able to host parties and be VIP (Very Important Princess). At the parties, you did all the normal things (shop for poorly made items that dyed your finger green or get a makeover which included nail polish and an updo), but also got to dance (the dancing is oddly important to me, probably because there were dance routines everywhere during this time thanks to High School Musical and Step Up which I watched on repeat), make your own lotions and perfumes and lip gloss, and just take a shit ton of super badly lit, red-eyed pictures. It was a VIBE.
It was such a vie that here, at ATF, I declare that Club Libby Lu was a haven before it’s time for young women. Look, I’m certainly not supporting the fact that every girl, in order to feel good about herself, needs to slather on a ton of makeup and dress in all pink and dance to Brittany Spears. Young girls should be allowed to do whatever makes them feel good! So in the fairness of the time (remember the early 2000’s were wild), I truly think that CLL served as a stepping stone for young girls going through puberty and learning about themselves. CLL served as a literal space to express those newly learned desires, talents, skills, emotions through ridiculous makeup, sister bonding exercises, and all of the Spice Girls. Because while everything was pink and purple feather boas, I distinctly remember getting a say in everything: hairstyle, makeup colors and styles, nail polish. Now I know that doesn’t establish everything, but if I wanted to have an all-black makeup look, I totally could cause that’s just what you did at CLL. You got to be you.
So what happened to them? Owned by Sacks Incorporated, in 2009 they closed all 98 stores (in 28 states!) due to the economic crash in 08. So as I entered high school, this new adult chapter in my life, Club Libby Lu, the destination of my childhood shuttered its doors in response. I’d like to take a moment of silence for a great establishment. Is Sephora the CLL for now? I feel like there is so much internal hatred and hardiness that resides in the beauty industry that I was completely unaware of at 10 when I’m getting my nails painted by some high school chick working a side hustle. Is there even a place that makes women and men today feel inclusive and encouraged to become their inner selves through music, makeup, hair styling, and MORE DANCE? No, all good things die. There is, however, a current establishment under the name Sweet and Sassy which serves as this generation’s CLL. There is one in the mall that I work at in Columbus. From what I know, which is barely anything, it’s more or less the same thing. Similar fuschia and foggy purple, this time with neon green added in and features makeovers, other salon menu items, and, of course, parties. I love that there is a version of CLL, living and breathing out there (well, at least for the time being before this current economic downturn and just general shitstorm of a world). What I’d like to see are two things: 1) The adults version of this. And this is specific because I don’t necessarily need it to be a “good” makeover. In fact, the point is that it doens’t cost $800 per experience because god spas are expensive. And 2) Obviously be more inclusive. While Sweet and Sassy don’t really gender anywhere in writing, it’s still obviously for girls and all there promotional videos/photos are mostly white girls. I think there are some little boys that would just die to be at CLL / Sweet and Sassy party. I know I want one now, as a 26-year-old!
Daily Intention
Today I will…
Let myself go to bed when I need to. Just because it’s a Friday night doesn’t mean I have to stay up past 9PM.
Here’s some nifty buttons for you to press, enjoy: