They didn't have cameras when I turned 21

Um, okay so that was a lie. They totally had cameras. I even had a camera. BUT, since it was like, FOREVER ago (yes, I'm old), I didn't have Facebook (thank God), so I don't actually know where any pictures from the festivities actually are. 

I turned 21 the summer between my sophomore and junior years of college, because I've always been older than my class. And because my stupid birthday is in the stupid summer (oh, and was also on a stupid Sunday), almost none of my friends were there (except one who was from Chicago, and with whom I am not friends any longer). So my "entourage", if you will, consisted mainly of friends of my sister's that she managed to convince to come along for a while. And my brother, and a couple of his Marine Corps friends. And my one friend, who was underage and couldn't actually do much with us. 

The night started at Buffalo Wild Wings. We went out actually the night before my birthday, so there was a slight risk I wouldn't be able to actually drink anything until after midnight. However, I have a very charming (and apparently good-looking) brother, who managed to sweet-talk our BDubs waitress into serving me alcohol, even though I was underage, but she told me I couldn't tell anyone, so whenever somebody else glanced at our table, I was all like this guy, except that I was actually wearing a shirt like a normal person, and hopefully didn't look like such a first-class douche. 

 

I ordered a cosmopolitan, because it's what all the Sex and the City ladies were drinking, and who doesn't want to model their lives after those women it was the only name of a drink I could remember. It. Was. AWFUL. I've never had one since, because they're just disgusting. Gross, gross, gross. 

Anyway, so we stayed at BDubs until about 11:40, at which point we headed downtown. My brother had found a bar he thought would be kind of cool to go to, so we all ended up there. Interestingly enough, it turned out to be like drag queen night, or gay night or something at the place, so the only people there were gay dudes dressed as women. I was much more naive and innocent then than I am now and really had no idea what a drag queen was (or homosexuality, for that matter), so I was basically just really confused and slightly scandalized, and kind of couldn't stop staring. Whoops. 

I don't remember much else from the bar, other than that my friend Tim (on whom I had a GINORMOUS crush at the time, although now he is like my brother and the thought of liking him "like that" actually kind of makes me cringe) made a special trip up from the southern burbs to attend for like, five minutes, and bought me an amaretto sour, which was DELICIOUS. And then he kissed me on my cheek when he left, and I like, totally swooned. Or I was just really, really drunk at that point, one of the two. Probably mostly the second one, because that's mostly where my night cuts off. 

I have heard stories from my sister that in the car on the way back to her place, I almost lost my cookies all over the purse that my friend had bought me, but that the girl who was sitting next to me in the car managed to get the purse out of the bag before I uh....refilled it. 

And then she pulled over so I could lose it some more and I have a very vague memory of being really really mad that she wouldn't let me just go to sleep on the side of Interstate 94 in Chicago. And then when we finally got back to her place, we had somehow gotten locked out, so while we were waiting for someone to wake up and let us in, I was sitting on the front step but like, falling over, and somebody somewhere has a picture of me being held upright by my chin so I wouldn't fall over and break my face on the concrete. 

And then I woke up the next morning afternoon on the floor of the bathroom and experienced my first hangover, lasting approximately three days. But I didn't throw up again, and I ended up losing like 3 pounds because I couldn't eat for most of the time I was hungover, so we can at least count that part as a win, right? 

And once I recovered from that, I wondered to myself why anyone would ever get that drunk twice, because the losing time, and the stumbling around, and the hangover afterwards was just plain terrible. And I haven't done it since, except the one time on NYE when I got super wasted completely accidentally, but that's a story for another time. 

And to make up for the fact that I don't have any pictures of the abject disaster I was when I turned 21, here is a picture of the cake I made for ZJ's 1st birthday party last year. This is a lot prettier than I was, so you're welcome for that.