I like to be alone on my birthday.

Perhaps that seems odd for someone who generally likes group activity—I can be a little whatevs doing a project on my own, but if someone is with me, or I am in a group, or I’m writing against a deadline for my adoring fans, then it’s balls-to-the-wall, and I am leading the pack.

Or perhaps I like to be alone on my birthday because I am an attention hog pretending to be all cas’ (caj, cajzh)—casual-like about my birthday. If I’m in a group, I can’t really announce to all the strangers around me that it’s my birthday, now can I? That would just be weird.

Since you could not come along, I’m recounting my day just for you.

Our adventure starts on the evening of the 25th….

9:09 PM: I score three giant Costco snickerdoodle cupcakes (left-overs from a package of 6) on freecycle (a neighborhood exchange group through which you share things you don’t need and pick up things you do for free). How did they come to me and not one of the five other people who said they wanted them? Because I told the freecycler that tomorrow is my birthday, of course.

The next day at 8:37 AM, I pick up the cupcakes on the way home from picking up groceries. When I deliver said groceries and a 6-pack with 3 remaining cupcakes home, my husband asks, “Where’d you get the cupcakes?” I tell him, that some lady gave them to me for free on Facebook. He says he wishes I hadn’t told him that.

That lady even attached a happy birthday note.

9:36 AM: I settle in a Bryn Mawr Breakfast Club, easily the best breakfast place in Chicago. I order the herb omelet that the waiter recommends AND a half-order of bread pudding French toast. Not that I am embarrassed by my one-top with the family-sized order, but I still clarify the need for 1.5 entrees to the waiter: It’s my birthday.

An hour later, I am on my way to do a little shopping. I stop by a couple of garage sales and end up at Goodwill. I get a few books (that’s another story), a hoodie, a bright orange jacket, and a giant yellow Fischer-Price toy person. He has a nice smile. Before tax, my spree totals $25.91. I remind the cashier that it’s my birthday—don’t I get a birthday discount? Yes, yes, I do—25%. By 11:51, I am out the door having spent $21.42.

12noon: I race to Starbucks for the annual Venti Mocha Cookie Crumble Frappuccino. (Note: I got a half-order of bread pudding French toast at breakfast not out of any sense of modesty or caloric “responsibility” but in order to allow gastrointestinal room for this epic beverage.) I order and then mention, clearly, so there is no mistake, I’m going to use my free birthday reward, ‘k?

Sugared, shopped, and Starbucksed-up, I head home for the weekly Zoom call with my business mastermind group.

While not a birthday Zoom call, it is a Zoom call on my birthday. When the host asks each of us to type something we are grateful for today in the chat, I type: It’s my birthday!

After the call, I am back to (real) people who make me dinner (Greek salad, french fries, tzatziki—which I made—and grilled chicken), give me presents (a new yellow notebook and tix to Jesus Christ Superstar), and remind me it’s my birthday by singing a song about it.

It’s a slow and dour song punctuated by snuffing out a candle (which has connotations that do not quite speak to another year of life), but the extinguished candle is stuck into a chocolate cupcake with buttercream icing that my daughter bought for me with her own money on her way home from school.

In appreciation, I eat the whole fucking thing.