{"id":6166,"date":"2007-03-29T11:29:48","date_gmt":"2007-03-29T15:29:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=6166"},"modified":"2022-10-12T15:52:08","modified_gmt":"2022-10-12T19:52:08","slug":"happy-birthday-ann-marie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=6166","title":{"rendered":"Happy birthday, Ann Marie"},"content":{"rendered":"

I wrote this huge post last year about how she and I “met before we met”<\/a> – It was a mythic night, especially in retrospect – because I met her – before I really met her. I met M. – before I really met him. And I met Phil … who took me on a date to see Pat McCurdy and this had long-term repercussions which still have reverb today. I went on one date with Phil and he took me to see Pat?? I mean, what? THANK you, Phil … you have NO idea! And then months later I meet Ann Marie again … at Pat? What are the odds?? Anyway, you can read the whole thing up there – it still makes me shiver a bit to think of what my life would be like if I HADN’T gone out on that shivery February night.<\/p>\n

And so in honor of my dear friend’s birthday, I am going to post an old Diary Friday which describes my best birthday party ever – a party that was engineered entirely by Ann Marie.<\/p>\n

Thank you, dear friend … and happy birthday!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

November <\/h3>\n

I remember events by my outfits. That night, at Pat, was a blue denim and black mini-skirt kind of night. I had a feeling re: M.; by this point I totally believed he would be there. I sat for the first set with Ann and she came back after going to the bathroom (“doing a sweep” for M.) and said, “Let your heart SING!”<\/p>\n

I went back to sit with him. I felt like I was shooting out light from beneath my skin. I was so happy!<\/p>\n

Pat had me sing with him. The intro to that song pulls my heart up and out of my body. He makes me feel like I could fly. If only I could run fast enough.<\/p>\n

After the show, everyone was heading to the Emerald Queen, all of us exiting together. Pat was leaving too. I made <\/u> M do the velociraptor for Pat.<\/p>\n

(Ed: A quick note: M did “imitations” of dinosaurs. So funny that I would nearly asphyxiate from laughter when he would suddenly become a brontosaurus or whatever. He had been developing his velociraptor imitation for some time. I would be sitting at the bar, doing my thing, and glance over and see a velociraptor at the jukebox, picking out songs. Or he would suddenly become a pterodactyl as he took a sip of beer. He would chase me through his apartment AS a velociraptor – much to the chagrin of his poor roommate who was trying to get an early night. He became known, in my group of Lounge Ax friends who had a habit of giving everybody nicknames: “Dinosaur Boy.”) <\/i><\/p>\n

M. did NOT want to do his velociraptor for Pat, and I made him. Afterwards, M. was just wincing about it. “Pat McCurdy was having none <\/u>of my velociraptor.”<\/p>\n

We all had this HYSTERICAL walk over to the Emerald Queen. M and I, our arms around each other, were lurching across Lincoln Avenue. It was 1:30 in the morning, and a huge crowd of us had been set loose. Gus Kapinsky was leapfrogging over parking meters, one after the other after the other. We made M. watch him do this.<\/p>\n

Still stuck on Pat’s clear animosity towards him, and Pat’s indifference to his velociraptor, M. stood on the curb and pretended he was about to leap off and commit suicide. “I’m gonna jump!” he screamed.<\/p>\n

No cars in sight. Long empty black street. Street lights changing from green to yellow to red with no cars there.<\/p>\n

Suddenly M. announced bluntly, “A velociraptor can go 75-80 miles an hour” and he took off<\/u>. Other Lounge Ax people heading to the Emerald Queen, some in 2s, others in larger groups, saw him gallop by, and started laughing, pointing. “Look! It’s Dinosaur Boy!”<\/p>\n

Voices echoing. Cold.<\/p>\n

M. was a velociraptor. He peered hungrily into the windows of a car pulling out of a lot.<\/p>\n

I was laughing so hard I thought I might need medical attention.<\/p>\n

M. said to me after, “When I move my body \u0085 people laugh.”<\/p>\n

Thinking of the velociraptor, the spontaneous jazz dances, the circus horses, the ostrich running through my apartment, I had to agree.<\/p>\n

At one point, at the Emerald Queen, some Sinatra song came on and M. suddenly leapt up and made a spectacle of himself with an impromptu jazz dance. A crowd surrounded him, roaring with laughter. Ann and I were mopping off tears. There were actual people watching, but M. was performing for an imaginary crowd, which was my favorite part. Also, he and I had literally been in the middle of a conversation, there hadn’t even been a lull, and he responded, mid-sentence, to the call of the music.<\/p>\n

M. turned to me suddenly, later, and said, “You wanna see my circus horse?”<\/p>\n

You really have to ask?<\/p>\n

The place was packed with people and suddenly M. pranced through the crowd, and all I can say is he WAS a circus horse down to the expression in his damn eyeballs.<\/p>\n

I heard people murmuring, “What’s going on” as M. high-stepped around me. He became himself for a second to explain to me what he did physically to become a horse (he had a theory about it) and then he became a horse again.<\/p>\n

Ann turned around in the middle of all this and saw him high-stepping by. She watched him for a moment and then slowly looked to me for an explanation. Her expression was priceless.<\/p>\n

I said quietly, “He’s a circus horse.”<\/p>\n

She nodded, accepting this. “Oh.”<\/p>\n

M. said to me, word for word, “You and me \u0085 we laugh. We hang out with each other and we laugh. Know what I mean? It makes me happy. I like laughing with you. For too long I’ve lived my life like that Pat song about being artistic. I don’t want to do that anymore. I like being happy.”<\/p>\n

And then \u0096 2 weeks later \u0096 came my birthday extravaganza, held during a Pat show at Lounge Ax.<\/p>\n

Ann Marie basically decorated the bar. She is so incredible. There was a huge bunch of balloons (“Here. Arrange these in a festive manner,” she ordered Lady Elaine).<\/p>\n

(Ed: This is so hostile but there was another Pat fan who she and I did not like, who was a bit crazy, and obsessed with McCurdy in a kind of stalkerish way – not in the ultra COOL and sophisticated <\/u>way that ANN and I were obsessed with Pat McCurdy (sarcasm) \u0096 and basically this stalker-fan’s nose and his chin almost touched \u0096 so Ann Marie and I called him “Lady Elaine” after the puppet on Mr. Rogers, because we felt there was a resemblance. We did not call him “Lady Elaine” to his face, but we would blatantly refer to him as such, “Wow, look at how Lady Elaine is hovering around Pat\u0085” “Loved Lady Elaine’s crazy air guitar during ‘Knock Things Over'”\u0085So the image of Ann Marie ordering “Lady Elaine” to arrange balloons in a “festive manner” \u0085 I just \u0085 It’s just freakin’ funny, that’s all.)<\/i><\/p>\n

Ann Marie baked cupcakes, brought candy. It was a total extravaganza. Everyone knew it was my birthday. I wore my mermaid dress and a black choker. (Ed: How embarrassing \u0096 but I warned you up front! Every diary entry during the “magic time” is accompanied by a description of my clothes<\/i>\u0085)<\/p>\n

I went to find M. and he was sitting at the bar, so cute, waiting for me. I was so happy to see him I was high on him. We were a happy couple. We are a happy couple.<\/p>\n

I pointed to all the balloons, arranged by Lady Elaine. “Those are for me.”<\/p>\n

He asked me how my actual birthday was and I told him pretty bad and that I had cried on the train. He was hurt by this news. “You cried <\/u>on your birthday?”<\/p>\n

Then he said, “I thought about you on your birthday. I thought about calling you, but \u0085” and he stopped himself with this very inward-look on his face. He had no word of excuse, he looked confused at his own behavior. “I don’t know why I didn’t.”<\/p>\n

I said, “You should have! Of course, at the first sound of your voice I would have dissolved into tears.”<\/p>\n

We laughed at that.<\/p>\n

I asked him how his Thanksgiving was and he said, “It was all right,” but with such an evident edgy look of misery and anxiety in his eyes. He cannot mask his emotions. I responded to the look on his face, not his words. “Not good, huh.”<\/p>\n

He shrugged and then said, “Well \u0085 clearly I have issues.”<\/p>\n

I couldn’t help myself. I burst into laughter right in his face. He has assimilated me! Me, always talking about “issues”. He looked truly confused, like, “What <\/u>did I just say?” \u0096 and I kept laughing, and then he began YELLING at me, “No! No! I don’t have issues<\/u>. I have PROBLEMS. I don’t have issues<\/u>. I have PROBLEMS.”<\/p>\n

Ann Marie wrote me a fairy story for my birthday. I was living in such a euphoric state. Everything was perfect. Ann also gave me flannel sheets! Bless you, Ann!! I love them. She went totally nuts for my birthday. She is an incredible party planner.<\/p>\n

I had raved to M. about how I wanted flannel sheets, and he told me I had to get some. So I showed them to him, all excited. “Look, M.! Flannel sheets!” He was cute \u0096 kind of withdrawn, but smiling, shy, kind. “Hey! You just told me you wanted some!”<\/p>\n

Half of our conversations are about objects and their faults or virtues: bureaus, incense, coffee makers, coffee tables, banana pickers jackets, new blue jeans, veal parmesan sandwiches, his special mattress he had as a teenager, etc.<\/p>\n

I loved it that M. would get all puffed up like a peacock because he was “the guy with Sheila”. He would pretend there was an imaginary crowd around him and he’d say in a very over-it casual tone, “Yeah \u0085 I’m with her. It’s no big deal. I’m just with her.”<\/p>\n

M. told me his mother said his haircut made him look like a “jackass”.<\/p>\n

We left the bar with a huge fanfare because of all my gifts and balloons.<\/p>\n

Pat had had me sing, and had also led the entire place in singing happy birthday to me.<\/p>\n

M. helped me carry some of my stuff out. Ann said he was behaving “very husbandly” which is so true. He was loaded down with all my gifts, and I was keeping him waiting as I said good-bye to everyone five times. He was grumbling about it, and impatient.<\/p>\n

“I have to say good-bye to Ann Marie!”<\/p>\n

“Didn’t you already do that?”<\/p>\n

“Yeah, but not for the last <\/u>time!”<\/p>\n

He sat in the car, exhaling frustration as I flew around hugging everyone and saying goodbye to Ann Marie 10 times.<\/p>\n

We released all of my balloons into the air outside of Lounge Ax. They floated up over the Biograph and disappeared into the black.<\/p>\n

I climbed into the car with M., this person I have known for almost 2 years now, and we peeled away from the curb.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wrote this huge post last year about how she and I “met before we met” – It was a mythic night, especially in retrospect – because I met her – before I really met her. I met M. – … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[600],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6166"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6166"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":180315,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6166\/revisions\/180315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}