Happy New Year!

Gustave Courbet's got the idea.

So, for the past few days I've been complaining that this is the worst birthday I've ever experienced. 21 is supposed to mean something, right? It's the year that marks entrance into adulthood; it's the year that some kids start drinking legally even though they've been drinking for years before that anyways. It's a time of celebration and family and friends and blah blah blah. For me it was shit- I basically waded knee-deep in my own self pity until I went to a friend's Old Year's Night (or New Year's Eve if you're American-also incidentally my birthday) party and had fun with the vodka and the hors d'oeuvres...



The next morning I woke up with a rash covering my entire face due to an allergy to something (or rather, one of the very many somethings) I greedily engulfed the night before. Previously, I wasn't aware that I was allergic to anything. Oh god, when would it end?

The year before, my mom gave me a laptop for my birthday and Christmas, since they're so close together. A week after this birthday, some enterprising individual broke into her car and stole it. Is there no justice in this world? I'd scream it out on a mountain top if I could access one. All I live is the hill I live on, which is not nearly big enough to provide enough dramatic effect. Plus, I don't want to give the neighbours more reason to think my family is crazy.

Then it hit me today: of course there's justice in the world! Your birthday was shit because you made it that way. It's a pity it took me this long to realize that I can't wait around for my parents or people in general to plan things for me anymore. It's a pity that I only just realized as I was washing clothes that have been in my suitcase since I arrived here a month ago that I can't depend on people anymore to do things for me to make me happy.

In theory, I'm an existentialist. I don't believe that the world is controlled by god or by fate, I think it's controlled by man's will and his actions. But good god is it hard to apply such lofty ideals to real life when you're wondering how the hell you're going to get a new laptop for school (for a Multimedia degree!) when you're a poor student and your divorced parents are bickering as they always do over who should give the money to help to buy thing. Enough to say fuck it and buy it myself with the little that I have, and figure out a way to support myself next semester. Which is exactly what I'm going to do.

This is my life, and I'll by my own damn birthday present.

Hors d'oeuvres are evil. Also tricky to spell.