The Bear Bitch’s Project

Exactly a year ago I wrote a blog about how disappointing birthdays get the older you become. Well apparently, with age comes wisdom. This year I discovered that birthdays are only as good as you make them. Last year I relied wholly on other people to make my birthday special so inevitably, I was terribly disappointed.For my 25th, milestone birthday I decided to go all out and spoil myself - and I ended up having the best birthday!

I decided to fly to New York to watch 2 of my 3 favorite musicals, The Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables (I would have seen Miss Saigon too if only it was still showing on Broadway). I spent an insane amount of money for and on this trip but it was most definitely worth every single penny.

My birthday itself was Phan-tabulous (har, har!). I’ve loved
The Phantom of the Opera for as long as I can remember and it is my absolute favorite so I made sure that I’d be watching it on the day itself. But the show was in the evening so I spent the afternoon at Strand Bookstore which boasts 18 miles of rare, used, and brand new books for dirt cheap. I thought I’d died and gone to bibliophile heaven. One hand was pushing a shopping cart in front of me while the other was dragging a 6 foot tall ladder behind me (to reach the top portion of the shelves) so by the end of the 3 hours my arms were killing me - but I had only gone through 1 section of the 3 storey store! There was still so much I hadn’t gone through but there was just not enough time; I swore to set aside 1 full day for Strand next time I go to New York. I had gone to NY with just a duffel bag so I had to limit my purchase to 8 hardbound books. These were all 50% off so I was itching to buy more but as it was, I had no idea how to get the 8 home, let alone more.

  Phantom was just an emotional cocktail for me. I was so excited to see it again after 12 years (my Dad took me to see it in San Francisco when I graduated Grade School) that I was physically shaking while queued up outside the theater. When I saw the gold gargoyle statues (grabbing the boobs of the naked women) around the stage, my eyes welled up and as soon as the theater lights dimmed I started sobbing hysterically, much to the bewilderment of the poor man sitting next to me. He must have thought I was a right psycho to be bawling my eyes out before the first word of the play was even spoken. It was even better than I remembered it to be; I enjoyed every second of it. As I walked to the subway after the show I remember thinking to myself that Phantom was so Phan-tastic that it alone was worth the trip to NY.

Little did I know that it would actually get better.

When they announced in December that Lea Salonga would be playing Fantine in Les Mis starting March 6 I was so bummed - my ticket was for March 3! I was missing her by 3 days. But as luck (and birthday blessings) would have it, not only did Lea start 4 days earlier than scheduled, she happened to be performing in the show that I had a seat for! I went from being totally bummed to positively psyched! I was pretty proud of myself that I didn’t start sobbing again as soon as they turned down the lights. But it was too good to be true: I started sobbing as soon as the orchestra started playing - again, before the first line was even sung! Just like Phantom, Les Mis was better than I remember it to be. Sure, this Valjean wasn’t as good as the first one I had seen (then again, I’m probably biased since the guy who played Valjean the first time I saw it is related to  me) and Cosette was bordering on annoying but it was still an amazing show. To be honest, I didn’t really like Lea’s performance as Eponine, but she was great as Fantine: she stole the show!

I won’t bore anyone further with more details of my trip, I’ll just say that all in all, I had a wonderful time - because I made the effort (and spent the moolah). Last year I moped and wallowed in self-pity because my birthday turned out to be a disappointment - but did I lift a finger to even attempt to make it special? No. So I had no reason to complain. This year, I didn’t sit around and wait for people to make my birthday great. I went out and made sure of it myself and was rewarded handsomely!
So the day I turned 25 I learned a valuable lesson. If you really want something - go out and get it yourself. Don’t wait for the world to hand it to you cause if you do, then you’re certainly be disappointed.
Happy birthday to me, indeed!

2 March 1982

You were born on a Tuesday
under the astrological sign Pisces.
Your Life path number is 7.

The Life Path 7 suggests that you entered this plane with a gift for investigation, analysis, and keen observation. You are a thinker of the first order. You evaluate situations very quickly, and with amazing accuracy. As a result, you are thorough and complete in your work, the perfectionist who expects everyone else to meet a high standard of performance, too.

A Life Path 7 person is a peaceful and affectionate soul. But you guard your connection to people carefully. It’s easy for you to detect deception and recognize insincere people, and you avoid them. You aren’t one to have a wide circle of friends, but once you accept someone as a friend, it’s for life. It’s as if you must get to know someone a lot better before you allow the wall surrounding you to be penetrated. Chances are you are a very charming and refined individual with great poise and a quick wit. Nonetheless, there is an exclusiveness about you. You probably aren’t a very social person. Your reserve is often taken to be aloofness, but actually, it’s not that at all. It is merely a cover up for your basic feeling of insecurity. There’s no rush, It takes time for you to warm up to new friends. Clubs and organizations hold little interest for you; you are not a joiner.

You actually like being alone and away from the hustle and bustle of modern life. In many ways, you would have fit in better in much earlier times when the pace of life was less hectic. You need a good deal of quiet time to be with your own inner thoughts and dreams. You dislike crowds, noise, distractions, and confusion.

The overwhelming strength of the number 7 is reflected in the depth of thinking that is shown; you will garner knowledge from practically every source that you find. Intellectual, scientific, and studious, you don’t accept a premise until you have dissected the subject and arrived at your own independent conclusion.

This is a very spiritual number and it often denotes a sort of spiritual wisdom that becomes apparent at a fairly early age. A built in inner guide providing a strong sense of intuition may set you up as being a law unto yourself. Whatever spiritual position you take, whether traditional or bizarre, you will cling to it with fervor. Once you have decided an issue, it is almost impossible to get you to revisit the question. Adaptability is not your style, and change for you is a rarity.

You rely heavily on your experiences and your intuition, rather than accepting advice from someone. Your hunches usually prove to be very accurate, and knowing this, you follow the directions they seem to guide.

.You were born in the Chinese year of the Dog.

Your Native American Zodiac sign is Wolf; your plant is Plantain.

As of 4/3/2007 5:04:51 PM EDT
You are 25 years old.
You are 301 months old.
You are 1,309 weeks old.
You are 9,163 days old.
You are 219,929 hours old.
You are 13,195,744 minutes old.
You are 791,744,691 seconds old.

Celebrities who share your birthday:

Laraine Newman (1952)
Top songs of 1982

Your birthstone is Aquamarine

The Mystical properties of Aquamarine

Aquamarine is often used to experience love and mercy. It is said to help ease depression and grief.

Some lists consider these stones to be your birthstone. (Birthstone lists come from Jewelers,

Tibet

, Ayurvedic Indian medicine, and other sources)

Jade, Rock Crystal, Bloodstone

Your birth tree is

Weeping Willow, the Melancholy

Beautiful but full of melancholy, attractive, very empathic, loves anything beautiful and tasteful, loves to travel, dreamer, restless, capricious, honest, can be influenced but is not easy to live with, demanding, good intuition, suffers in love but finds sometimes an anchoring partner.

The moon’s phase on the day you were
born was in its first quarter.