I didn’t think I’d make it to thirty. For a long time, I felt fairly confident about that. Over the weekend, I proved myself wrong. And I’m pretty happy about that.

Since the Princeton tournament ran till 1:30 in the morning on my birthday proper, we ended up putting up some of my Rutgers team that had planned on going back to New Brunswick when the trains were still running. Em tipped them off that the day was significant, so after the tournament they went out and got cupcakes, a book I’d been meaning to read, and two hats, including my first-ever beret and a wool bear hat which is truly amazing and fits neatly in my collection of somewhat ridiculous headgear.

Em and I went out to dinner at the infamous Tortuga’s that night, I got a migraine, and was actually asleep at 2:56 AM Eastern on the 21st, the moment (11:56 PM Pacific on the 20th) that I turned 30. Would not have predicted that.

The next day, Em had said there would be a small gathering of people, but totally misrepresented the size and schedule, creating a pretty hefty surprise party that started at Chipotle! It went on to bowling, wherein I notched a 198 high game after bowling a so-so 443 series. We had time for so many games because the entire party save four people (Fish, Beth, Em, and I) ditched after just one game of bowling. It was still great that so many people came out though.

Here are some obligatory pictorial depictions of the event:

30’s a big number:

Cake!

How did I get to be so old?

Resisting the temptation to faceplant…

A lot of people came from Philadelphia and Jersey:

The opening frame. Note the lack of pins in the lane!

55% of our lives and counting:

I’ll have something about the deeper reflections of what it’s like to actually be thirty sometime later. It feels remarkably different, remarkably weird. As I’ve stated frequently, I’m really glad I finished American Dream On to ward off feelings of failure and insignificance that are still wafting in a bit. Today, I also maintained a February/March tradition by creating a mix CD, my first since last March. Entitled “Triple Threat”, it mixes themes of three decades, the state of the world, and creativity. Like being thirty itself, I’m not entirely sure what I think of it yet.