I have been celebrating my birthday since Friday, February 5th. My actual birthday was yesterday, the 6th of February and now I’m winding things down, trying to get ready for normalcy once again. For the past decade, my birthday has fallen on Super Bowl weekend, so my birthday has always come in second to everyone’s love of football.

However, the actual game was the day after my birthday, but having a party that night before the biggest television watching event of the year was just not feasible. Not to mention, all my friends work in retail and must work this weekend or somehow managed to get it off and had other events to go to instead. Not to mention everything with covid restrictions so having people over wasn’t the best idea anyways.

So Friday, I drank and smoked after work and it was a grand old time. The plan for my actual birthday was to have my parents and sister over for lunch and cake and then Diego and I would do our own thing once they left.

So my mother brought cake and this beautiful bouquet of white flowers with some greenery in there and the awesome cake pictured above in my favorite color. They brought Red Robin takeout for the five of us to eat (Diego included), and the game Yahtzee for after we were done with the food and cake.

We ended up all watching the Netflix show Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee with Jerry Seinfeld, which is definitely a show up my dad’s alley. It’s very low key, they show cool cars, they drink a cup of coffee and Jerry meets with different comedians. We watched the one with Dave Chappelle which wasn’t that funny and one with Seth Rogen. My mom didn’t understand the jokes, my sister didn’t like the show at all, my dad loved it because he loves Seinfeld, Diego didn’t care and was surprised we all got along so well for as long as they were here, and I only put it on because I showed my dad the show one time and now it’s his new favorite show. But he made me make a cup of black coffee so he could feel like he was getting coffee with Jerry.

Later on after everyone left, I went into my new renovated office where I bought myself a nice desk with a bookshelf attached to it. I put another desk adjacent to it to create a “L” shape. I bought a navy blue rug with white octagonal lines on it, which matched my navy blue Chinese lanterns which I still need to hang up and the navy blue and white floral accent pillows I have on my chair. It looks super clean and nice. Now it’s time to take out all the Amazon boxes and do a video tour of the space.

After that, Diego asked what I wanted to do and I said I didn’t know, but it was 4:30pm and I was getting hungry again. We ended up getting a $75 crab pot from a local restaurant and now mind you, I haven’t had crab in about 15 years because I used to be allergic to it; I used to develop a skin reaction where my hands would itch and turn red but I would be so uncomfortable that it wasn’t worth it to eat seafood, period.

But since then I have slowly reintroduced shrimp and certain kinds of cooked fish back into my diet. So I figured seafood would sound good and then Diego said we should get a crab pot full of king crab, dungeoness crab, sausage, corn, potatoes, clams, shrimp, and mussels. I said shoot if you’re paying, I’m in.

So we split all that food in half and I ate all of my portion. Near the end of the meal, my hands start to itch and get red, so I decide to take a shower to get all the seafood feeling off my body. I get out of the shower and my face is so red it’s almost purple, like I had been drinking in excess, which I hadn’t. My face was also swollen, like I had two jaw breakers in my cheeks. I took two Benadryl and just chilled for the rest of the night, which is ironic because I told my family that I would be getting messed up for my 23rd birthday when in fact, seafood messed *me* up instead.

All in all it was a decent weekend. My bipolar is getting bad again because after my shower last night, I’ve been in a poor mood all around even thought there isn’t much to complain about. My delusions are getting worse too and I’m not sure why. I am getting bloodwork done on Tuesday and see the doctor on the 18th. I also have to see the orthopedic surgeon on Wednesday to see if the best course of action is surgery #3 or not. I have been okay about bracing my foot, but the brace only helps a little and I am in severe pain not just in my foot but in my knee that they took cartilage out of.

I also don’t think it helps that I haven’t really been able to work out or have much time for myself with school, work, a new puppy, etc. If Poncho didn’t have his autoimmune malfunction, I could take him out on walks, but now that his vaccines are on hold til the rash on his face clears up, I can’t do that. Plus, it would be hard on my foot even to go walking. This, of course, has led me to gain a lot of weight that I am not happy about. I hate it, I just want my body to be that of a 16 year old’s and the mental health of a 28 year old’s.

But I’m done complaining. I have procrastinated enough now it’s time to go back to the books as reality hits me in the face.

Much love,

Dani