happy Birthday to ME

I am an annoying nostalgic person. As I mature I've found it easier to let go of the past and look to the future, but when those big milestones come around I still get caught up in the rearview.

That being said, I wanted to chronicle my favorite birthday memories as I begin my thirtieth year of being Andrea Zaney Walters.

1998 - My sophomore year of high school, Sheila and Parisa got up early to put "Happy Birthday Andrea" posters up around the whole school. At lunch time, we had a mini party in the MPR, with cupcakes, cookies, hats and blowers. Awkward though I was, I still loved all the attention and will always love Sheila for knowing how to give me a great thrill. Plus Sheila made me a mixed tape and then the three of us went to Punk Rock Karaoke and sang White Riot with Mike Ness. It was, in a way, like a bat mitzvah.

2002 - I had just been kicked out of the house by the people I thought were my best friends, and absorbed into what I know fondly refer to as a crack house (only with weed). Floundering personally, academically, and socially, I wasn't even sure anyone would do anything for my birthday. When Jenna wouldn't come pick me up from school, I was heart broken. When I finally got home, I found the whole house decorated for my surprise birthday party. Charlie had brought my favorite pizzas home from work, there was a cake with candles, drinking, debauchery, and fun. When I needed it most, I felt loved, adored, and understood. Plus, it was an awesome party.

2004 - Jealous of other people's pirate costumes on Halloween, I decided to have a pirate-themed birthday party. Jenna collected all of my presents in advance, and planned out an elaborate scavenger hunt around the house, where each clue led me to another clue, a present, and a shot. I got oh so drunk. Added bonus? Christina gave me the once-in-a-lifetime gift of letting me drunkenly cut her hair into a mullet. So. Rad.

Honorable mentions go to the year I threw a lounge party, when Scott, Bob, and grant brought by a leftover super bowl keg and wore bathrobes, and Scott gave me a bag of trinkets he bought from a homeless guy; my Buca di Beppo/Piano Piano party, where I felt like I finally had a crew of friends in Claremont; the party that should have been, when Jenna and Taylor planned a bowling/sangria surprise party for me that failed because I spent the day in the E.R; my super classy birthday with Carlo, where he bought me a dream dress, took me out to Ecco, and we celebrated at home with friends, food, and Wii karaoke.