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I love how this picture looks photoshopped...

So, here’s the thing. I don’t know when or how my friendship with Courtni exploded. All of a sudden, I had this presence in my life that was supportive and really knew me. Our friendship doesn’t have a definitive start. I don’t know who commented on whose blog first, or who gave the other shit first or what.

All I know is, all of a sudden, there was a Courtni in my life.

Even before we met in person (much later than everyone assumed), I knew she would be there for me, no matter what. We could go days without talking but I knew that our friendship was somehow getting stronger. I don’t know how, but that’s just the way it was.

The first time I visited her and her family in Seattle, it’s like I entered a completely different world. There was no awkwardness. I was just there – accepted. My favorite parts about my trips out there is when we’re sitting on her big bed, wine glass in our hands, shooting the shit. More often than not, she’s probably yelling at me. Because there are certain things I wait to tell her until I see her in person. (Because I know how much she likes to yell it out and I’d rather her do it once than over chat, and then again in person).

I’ve been trying to figure out how to describe my friendship with Courtni without getting into too many inside jokes and certainly not getting too mushy.

See, she’s always believed in me. She’s always believed in my potential and my writing, even when I didn’t. She’s pushed me to go after what I wanted so that I can be happy and reach my potential. Without me even knowing.

For the longest time, I didn’t know she was in my corner.

She’s the kind of friend who will forgive me for throwing up all over her bedroom because I had too much to drink (Sorry Dad) but continue to give me shit about it probably for the rest of my life.

She’s the kind of friend who will tell me to go to bed when I’m overwhelmed and tired because I may be too stubborn to admit how tired I am.

She’s the kind of friend who’s a know-it-all LOUD inmyface bitch at times but I know that it’s out of love.

She’s the kind of friend that is really the sister I never had even if we met each other in our 20s.

She’s the kind of friend who welcomed me into her home and her life unconditionally.

She’s the kind of friend that I don’t have to fill silences with because they’re never awkward.

She’s my Numbah 2, my Wicked, my sister, my partner in cross-country crime.

And honestly?

I can’t wait for all of our adventures that are waiting for us because we’re just beginning. I mean, we have a whole 20+ years to make up in memories.

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I’m not big on birthdays, or making big birthday plans because people tend to flake. Especially after last year’s plans where about 90% of the people who said they would come out didn’t show up without even a message, I was worried about this year’s shenanigans.

Over the last year, I’ve been lucky enough to have really good friends who are local enter in to my life. Despite my issues, they’ve been there and when I was planning my birthday dinner, I knew that they would be the ones who would actually show up.

They didn’t disappoint.

This past weekend was full of lots of booze, amazing food, and of course, lots of laughter. Because my friends are the best.

Friday night, I kicked of the weekend at Kelly’s Irish Times to see Chris’ band Brains of J play.  If you’re a Pearl Jam fan in the DC area, you should check them out! I thought that it would be an early night, but I didn’t get home until 3 am after some last minute shenanigans that led me to a fun couple hours filled with dancing! I wasn’t prepared to go dancing so my feet didn’t really appreciate what I put them through in heels since I didn’t have my flats with me.

Saturday, I rested up in the morning before heading to VA for a baby shower. I always feel super awkward at baby showers, especially when I don’t know anyone except for the Mother-to-Be. I’m glad I went on Saturday because it was good to see my friend, and ya know, have an excuse to shop for ridiculously cute baby clothes.

After the baby shower, I went home to do a little writing and relaxing before the planned birthday shenanigans. We had dinner reservations at 8:30 at Zola, a restaurant I hadn’t yet tried out so I was really excited. The drinks were delicious (I stuck to the Zola which consisted of vodka, white cranberry, triple sec, and fresh lime.) We got the Lobster Mac & Cheese and the truffle fries for everyone at the table to share. (Ohmygod, so good).  For the entree, Andrew & I went with the Natural Beef Burger which was delicious!  At the end of the dinner, the boys ended up standing at the bar, watching the last few minutes of the basketball game (I already forgot which one it was) before we headed out to Iron Horse to continue the shenanigans. As we left Zola, I stopped a stranger and asked him to take a picture of the group outside of the restaurant.

The rest of the night contained more drinking, laughter and lots of ridiculousness.

The following morning, Andrew & I met Keri Kae and Nicole (my DC besties) for my birthday brunch at Vinoteca, one of my favorite brunch places in the city.  Our server was Jonathan who is officially my favorite. The food was delicious as always and there were a lot of mimosas. A LOT. It wasn’t a 6 hour brunch like last year at Urbana but between Saturday night’s shenanigans and the 3 hour brunch this past Sunday, I’d have to say brunch is starting to become one of my favorite things. Especially with ridiculous friends that I love dearly.

ALL THE MIMOSAS

We rounded out this awesome weekend with a dinner at Clyde’s with my brother and cousin, which was an awesome surprise.

On top of the awesome company, all the laughter and ALL THE FOOD, I got text messages from friends I hadn’t talked to in a while.

So thank you to my wonderful friends who made this birthday one to remember. Thank you for not letting me down and restoring my faith in real friendships.

Thank you to Andrew for being such a good support as the only person who’s not really involved with anything social media/interwebs/twitter as we all started to ramble about all things social media/interwebs/twitter at times throughout the night.  Even more thanks to him for taking care of me after the cab reeking of cigarette Saturday night got me sick. Oh, let’s not forget about how he got me Happy Feet Two on DVD for my birthday.

Because, you know, it wouldn’t be a birthday without my Penguin Posse!

So 27, you got off to a pretty fantastic start. Let’s make this year one worthy of its beginning.

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My birthday kind of sneaked up on me this year.

Last year, I crowd-sourced my birthday blog.

26 has been kind of a crazy year for me with a lot of ups and downs. I traveled a lot, made lots of crazy leaps in my life as a whole, and settled on starting my own business.

Oh, and I became a cat lady. 

I’ll be honest. I didn’t think I’d get to this point in my life.  When I was in my early 20s, I thought that I would be stuck there, living at home with my parents, forever. When I moved out a couple of months after my 24th birthday, I was a mess.

A complete mess.

Then I grew up. A little.

Even as recent as the past few months, I’ve been a wreck but I’m more in control of my life so it’s been easier to recover. I finally started to put myself first when it comes to life decisions because I have a tendency to think about everyone else. (Even this past week, as I’m planning my birthday dinner, my brain is in overload because I’m thinking about every single person in the group).

I don’t have some huge insight about my life or who I am right now.  Things are messy. I don’t do resolutions. I don’t even try to plan things because I get easily disappointed.

The one great thing about my life now is that I’ve been able to weed out the people who are flakes, backstabbers, and just plain old fakes. I’ve been more introverted lately, trying to figure out what makes me tick before I get so worried about what other people think. I’ve made some decisions about my life, my business, and the direction my life is going in. I’ve decided to stop trying to see myself the other people see me (or want to see me).

I just want to be.

The world (and sometimes DC) makes me want to crawl inside my own skin and never come out at times but I’ve been lucky enough to meet a few people who have become great, true friends.  With my best friend in Seattle, and some of my closest friends plane rides away, it’s been a lonely couple of years after I lost a few local friends. It was harder for me to really trust but a couple of good eggs broke through the walls.

That’s who I’ll be celebrating my birthday with this year. Not a huge group of people, but a small group that I would trust to invite into my home.

I don’t think 27 will be too different. I’m still obsessed with penguins, coffee, and traveling as much as possible. I’ll still watch stupid shows, laugh over the stupidest things and be as random as ever. I’ll be taking random pictures, most of it won’t ever make it to my Etsy shop but that’s OK.

I’ll just always be an April Fool.

Oh, and I love you guys.

A lot.

I’ll do the same thing I did last year:

Your mission, should you choose to accept is as follows:

In (at most) 3 sentences, describe me to someone who’s never met me AND who’s never been on the internets. So no references to anything blog/social media related.

<3

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Growing up, I didn’t have any pets. Unless you count parakeets, and let’s face it: Those suckers are only good for annoying you.

I’ve always been a dog person. I knew that my first pet would be a dog. I just knew it. In Turkey, we had a lot of stray cats on the streets and my impression of them wasn’t always so loving.

They hissed at me, a lot. I mean, not that I can blame them. Those streets be rough, yo.

Actual alley cats from my grandma's neighborhood in Turkey

The internet brought some cat appreciation into my life. Sure, you can haz cheeseburger!

I still wasn’t sold on having a cat for a pet.

Fast-forward to June of 2009, after I moved in with my new roommates. I went from growing up in a house of NO pets to a house full of a dog, and 3 cats.

That’s a lot of fur, you guys.

To make matters more interesting, my room wasn’t ready the first night I stayed at the house so I was to sleep on the couch in the living room.  This was before the two boy cats moved in so it was just Dori, the cute girl cat. I had gone out that night, and when I got home, everyone had gone to bed. I changed into my PJs, grabbed my laptop to do some writing and figured I’d have a decent night’s sleep.

Dori had other plans.

So, there I am, exhausted from the day of moving (not the mention the car accident from the day before) and all I want to do is lie down on the couch and pass out. Not 30 seconds goes by before Dori jumps up on the couch RIGHT NEXT TO MY FACE.

I managed to not scream. I took the nice kitty off the couch, put her on the floor and said “No!”

Oh, how foolish I was.

I closed my eyes again, and this time, had a mini-heart attack as she was even closer to my face.

I tried this two more times until I decided that there was no way I was falling asleep with this cat around, and the next time, I would scream so loud, I’d wake the whole house up.

So I stayed up the entire night and watched in horror as Dori ran back & forth between the kitchen and living room. Sometimes, she jumped on me. That was fun.  When my roommate came downstairs at 7, and said “Wow, you’re up early,” I really had no words to convey the night I had.

So, all of this and spending a year with 3 cats would certainly make me be completely against cats, right? I mean, all the fur, and the running away (Dori loved to escape) and not to mention Andrew’s allergies when we first started dating…

All signs pointed to “No Cats EVER”

But, something happened. Between losing my job, deciding to be a full-time freelancer and completely losing my mind, I decided I wanted a cat.

Andrew’s allergies? PFFT, HE CAN DEAL.

He didn’t think I would do it, but then I fell in love with a little kitten named Mitzy. I first laid eyes on Mitzy while scrolling through the Humane Society site on a hot, DC summer day. I looked at her. The stuffed octopus on her head looked at me.

It was love at first sight.

“Andrew, we’re getting this cat.”

“Aw, she’s cute.”

“No, seriously, I’m going over there tomorrow to fill out the paperwork.”

“Wait. What?

“I mean it.”

“…”

“…”

Just a few days later, we took Layla, formerly known as Mitzy, home.

I wasn’t the only one who fell in love with her

Allergies? Pft. The cute conquers all.

Though she has her slutty moments

And drives me crazy

She’s pretty much the best reason to become a cat lady.

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I cannot draw a straight line with a ruler.

I wish I was kidding. Pictionary? Not my game.

I tried taking art classes because my dad is a brilliant artist, and naturally, I got my mom’s skills when it comes to anything even remotely close to art.  When I was in 4th grade, we had to do a drawing to illustrate the parts of an ear. I couldn’t even trace it properly. As in, the picture was there, in great detail in my book and I couldn’t trace it to save my life.

So my dad saved my grade by doing it helping me.

In 8th grade, we were reading the Hobbit and we had an assignment to illustrate a scene. Excuse me, but isn’t this English class? Can’t I just write about it? No, I have to draw something? OK, sure.

Superdad to the rescue!

Of course, because my dad worked on the drawing late at night, with a cigarette permanently attached to his lips, my notebooks smelled like smoke. The next day, when I opened my backpack in English class, my teacher approaced me and asked me if I was smoking cigarettes.

*cue horror*

“N–no. My parents smoke and, and, my dad borrowed my notebook.”

So now there’s this game that everyone is playing. The premise is to draw something and have your friends guess what the word is.

Hahahahahahahahahaha

*breath*

ahahahahahahahahahahaha

No. I will play Words with Friends until I’m dreaming about it (May or may not have happened) but any game that requires me to actually draw and do it on my tiny iPod screen?

Hell no.

I have enough confidence issues. The last thing I need is a game that is designed to make me feel like a failure.

No, you guys go on and get your drawings on.  Also, don’t invite me to any game nights that consist purely of games that require me to draw and/or mold something out of clay.

Uh-uh.

You know what I’ll do if I’m at a game night with Pictionary as the main game?

I’ll take pictures. (Yes, this is a shameless plug for my Etsy shop, which is now back up and will have new pictures added.)

That’s the extent of my artistic ability because if my hand happens to shake, or I get a crooked picture, I might still be able to make something of it.

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I can’t pinpoint the exact moment, but hope decided to stop being a backseat driver and took over recently. It was always there. The one thing I never lose is hope, even if it’s quieter under all the noise from the sadness and chaos.

Sometime in the last week or so, hope decided that was enough sadness. I’d let myself be sad. My friends let me be sad but that was enough.

So I’m not sad anymore.  I’m still a little apprehensive and there are moments anxiety takes over but my life isn’t being dictated by my sadness anymore.

I feel confident in my decisions, and my decisions for my future.  I’m scared shitless but I’m confident.

Funny how that works.

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The title of my blog may be misleading at times. While I do my best to find a reason to smile/laugh every day, I’m not Little Miss Sunshine.

I’m not the kind of person to send my friends care packages full of cutesy stuff.

I’m not the kind of person to be all inspirational, and cheery on a daily basis. My friends know that if they need me, I’m here. I will message to let them know they’re on my mind on a daily basis but when it comes to being upbeat and full of sunshine?

That’s not me.

I try not to be a negative person. I do my best to stay positive, and I try not to fake it. If I’m having an off-day, I pretty much hide from the world and deal with it in my own way.

I’ve been fighting this sadness and bitterness the past couple of months and I try not to have it out in the open because I can’t deal with that unwanted advice, and the “you’re better off than so-and-so” or the “When I went through the same thing, only it was completely not the same, I did this” speeches.

I know people are trying to help, but sometimes, I just need to be sad.

And a little broken.

Maybe a little bitter and cynical.

So that’s where I am right now.

A little sad. A little bitter. A lot cynical.

Maybe I’ll be better tomorrow but for today?

I’ll crawl under my rock and be sad.

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Happy Friday y’all!

I’ll keep this short! First, the winner of our Etsy giveaway! I took all your entries, made them a little more random and then entered them into the random.org generator.

And according to the spreadsheet, lucky winner that had entry #174 was…

Congrats Angie!! You can email Michelle at michelle@cynicalredhead.com to tell her which one of the awesome goodies you want! 

Thanks to everyone who entered! We’ll be having another Etsy giveaway in March.  If you have an Etsy shop and want to do a giveaway, shoot me an email at berrakdc@gmail.com. I think I’m going to do one every month or so.

***

I’ve been keeping busy writing this past week. If you missed my last couple of blog entries, you can read about my confession and my road trip if you would like.

I was also over at Brazen Careerist, talking about 15 smart & fun blogs that will inspire you all day long!

Speaking of inspiration, my good friend Matt paid me the ultimate compliment by quoting one of my blog posts in his post yesterday. If you haven’t been reading his blog, you really should start!

***

Words with Friends is my new addiction. I usually have at least 10 games going at once! Want to play?

***

Hope everyone has a FANTASTIC weekend!

<3

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