A Fantasy Birthday Party

With T-minus 7 days and counting I’m thinking of how I will celebrate my birthday. Let me start by saying that my family is wonderful to me. When it comes to celebrating birthdays, if it were left up to me I’d spend all day long hunched over a PC. I may be inclined to go to a movie, a small dinner with friends, but mostly I want my birthdays to pass without much fanfare. Once every couple of years I’ll feel inspired and want to plan something truly awesome by way of celebration, but it usually peters out before the big day. My brother and wife on the other hand feel every birthday should be celebrated like a milestone, and the day is not over unless there’s cake and someone sings Happy Birthday. It’s because of them that every year I’ve had a wonderful birthday celebration in one form or another.

I’ll never forget the year I turned 12 my family planned for me to fall asleep on the way home from church one evening so that I could wake up in Vegas. It didn’t quite work out that way (it was the one time I was determined to stay awake) but it was still a very awesome surprise that I was on the way to see Siegfried and Roy! Really guys, I can’t thank you enough.

This year I’ve asked myself, If I could spend my birthday with anyone who would it be? I’ll be honest with you, I typically hate these types of questions. How am I supposed to find the one person, book, movie, song that I like above all others for the rest of all time? Cue the over-thinking-an-answer-and-waste-a-lot-of-time portion of my day. I’m going to try and avoid that and go with my gut.

The first person that comes to mind is author Maggie Stiefvater (who’s name I almost spelled correctly the first time, but you won’t know because of spell check). She’s the mind behind the Shiver series (The Wolves of Mercy Falls), Raven Boys (The Raven Cycle) and an all around awesome Twitterer (@mstiefvater, go follow her, I command you). Seriously Maggie, you win at Twitter! I’d love to party with Maggie. Her level of quirky and offbeat is right in sync with my own. She writes cool books and loves to drive fast cars. If we’d gone to high school together, we would have been great friends.

For this imaginary fantastical birthday of the ages I’m looking to have a laughing good time. So next I’d like to invite the entire current cast of Saturday Night Live. My family has a history of telling stories, enacting characters and making people laugh, so let’s multiply that exponentially by adding to the mix Jay Pharoh, Taran Killam, Kate McKinnon, Bobby Moynihan, Aidy Bryant, Kenan Thompson, Cecily Strong, Pete Davidson and Kyle Mooney. I think my face would crack from all the smiling this night.

If we were to do something a bit more formal, I’d love it if Jimmy Fallon was the host and the Roots the house band. I’m being greedy because I could have just asked for Jimmy Fallon to hang out with me, but I wanted the Roots too. How awesome would it be for a drum lesson from Questlove? And speaking of music, the Foo Fighters must stop by for a four song set that includes Darling Nikki.

Geez this lineup sounds awesome. I’m starting to wonder how I can pull this off now. A day talking books and driving fast cars with Maggie. Some behind the scenes time with the cast of SNL. A private Foos concert, who wouldn’t want that birthday celebration?

I supposed it would simply be more manageable to plan a trip to New York where I can see a taping of both shows. Hmmm.

Okay family, make it happen. We only have 7 days left!