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I realized I never mentioned it here, but my birthday was Wednesday of last week. Happy belated birthday, self!

In fact, I really ended up with more of a birth-week than a birthday. The festivities started on Sunday evening, with an impromptu boat ride on Saylorville with Klay, Megan, and Amanda on Klay’s boat (lovingly named “Ethyl,” unintentionally named by Yours Truly). We’d spent the day moving friend Sara from her apartment at 3KG (3000 Grand) to her new loft in the East Village. After that we were severely overheated, so the boat ride was a welcome cool-down. We even swam off the back of the boat for a while, which was divine. Afterwards, we headed to Appare for sake and teppanyaki. It was delicious.

Tuesday night, the four of us headed out on the lake again, as Megan and Klay were both going to be out of town for my birthday party proper, and they wanted to celebrate. This time we brought our food with us, and ate dinner on the lake. It was gorgeous watching the sun set over the lake, from the lake.

On Wednesday (day of birth), Amanda and I went out to dinner. We went to Appare again, but this time we stayed on the sushi side of the restaurant. We spent a couple of hours at our table enjoying sushi and martinis, and chatting about anything and everything that came to mind. It was very enjoyable. Amanda got me an iPod Shuffle and a gift certificate to iTunes, so I could listen to tunes while I jogged. It was an awesome gift, and also a hilarious one: that combo is exactly what I got her for her birthday three months ago. :)

Friday night was the night of my birthday party proper. We started the evening at The Lift, a martini bar on 4th street north of Court Avenue. Later in the night we migrated slightly south to the Royal Mile (a British pub), and ended up upstairs at the Red Monk (a Belgian bar). A good number of friends came out for the partying… over a dozen in all, I’d wager. Visitors included: Amanda, Justin, Tigon and Ben Woline, Jason, Daniel and Abbie Shipton, Hannah and Tono, Sara, Lindsay Reinert, Lindsay Rees, Nick, Adam Pirillo, Joe, Lisa, and Tae. And possible one or two others that I’ve forgotten. Amanda and I took a cab home, and I managed to go the entire night without losing anything I’d ingested, and I woke up entirely hangover-free. It was a good start to my 27th year. :)

Saturday night, a bunch of us got back together and headed to the Iowa State Fair for an evening out. I managed to eat both a foot-long corn dog AND a 5-pound turkey leg. Although, after having done so, I questioned my wisdom a bit. :) It was a nice, relaxing evening, and a great way to wrap up my birth-week.

So close, yet so far…

Weight: I’m a pound lighter today than I was last Monday. I managed to lose a ~lot~ of weight at the beginning of the week (5.5 pounds by Saturday morning!), and managed to gain most of it (4.5 pounds) back by this morning. So I was, briefly, below 180 pounds. I even managed to lose weight between Friday and Saturday, despite eating nachos and pie for dinner. I’m attributing my success to the fact that neither stayed in my stomach for long, due to the inclusion of seven various shots of liquor and eight or more glasses of beer while eating said nummies. It’s a good thing my birthday only comes around once a year.

Exercise: I was good at the beginning of the week, worse later on. I managed 90 minutes swimming, 70 minutes jogging, and around 200 minutes walking for exercise last week, or around 50 minutes of exercise in some form per day. I jogged a 5k in just over 30 minutes, which had me feeling pretty good. My plan is to start adding longer distances back in to my routine: I hadn’t noticed, but I’d fallen into a pattern of shorter distances at higher speeds, and really, that’s not as good for me in terms of weight loss as is slower and longer.

Intake: Hoo boy. It really depends on my estimates, which weren’t great. The lowest number is 920 calories on Friday, but that’s assuming I correctly calculated how many calories I consumed, and then correctly calculated how many of those calories came back up later on. I’ve averaged around 1800 calories/day for the last three days, assuming my fast food guestimations are accurate. I’m not sure they are.

My spreadsheet estimates that I have around three weeks of dieting left until I hit 175 pounds. I’d say it’s probably pretty close. And even if I hit it before then, it’ll take a few days/weeks of playing around with food before I figure out how much I can eat in a day without gaining or losing weight.

It turns out, I have a birthday coming up. In just seven short days, I will be 26 years old. I know: it kinda boggles my mind, too. I didn’t see this one coming.

I don’t remember the age at which my birthday stopped making me all excited, giving me butterflies in my stomach and keeping me awake at night with eager anticipation. It seems like it was quite some time ago. I think I was vaguely excited to turn 21, but even that wasn’t anything all that special. As I recall, I stayed in with my best friend and my girlfriend and had a few drinks — inadvertently missing a family party I wasn’t anticipating in the process. But that was the extent of the celebration.

As a kid, of course, I got excited like everyone else. I made lists, both in my head and on paper, of presents I was hoping to get, people I wanted to see, and things I wanted to do on my special day. There was always a cake, and usually homemade ice cream, and family would gather and sing “happy birthday” and I would blow out the candles at the end. Classic birthday stuff. I would open presents while people watched and ooh’d and aah’d as the boxes were opened.

And this stuff excited me. I often tried to pretend like it didn’t, play cool and all that, but it really did. And then somewhere along the line, I guess I quit pretending so much. Nowadays, I usually don’t even remember my birthday is coming. Was it not for our Spanish teacher having us write out our birthdates in Spanish last week, I’m not sure I would have remembered until a day or two prior. One of these days, I’m worried I’ll forget about it altogether. Many of my friends think this is strange: they start preparing and celebrating weeks in advance of the day, and are childlike (in a good way) in their enthusiasm.

This year, I’m making a concerted effort to ensure my birthday is something special. For starters, I’m taking the day off work. That’s pretty special already. Amanda and I are going to be spending the weekend in Minnesota for a Wurzinger family reunion (I seem to travel a lot right around my birthday) on Saturday. Sunday, we’ll hang out with her parents, and then get dinner somewhere in the city and go out for drinks. On Monday, we’re going to the Valley Fair amusement park for the day before heading home that evening. It should be a good time. A memorable time. Perhaps it will inspire me to look forward to my next birthday with a bit of that excitement I seem to have lost somewhere along the way.

For those of you who are in to the present-buying thing, but aren’t in to the coming up with your own ideas thing, my Amazon wish list is decently up to date. In case anyone was considering a scooter-themed gift, be warned that the scooter doesn’t look like it will happen until next year now. I know… it breaks my heart, too.