So at the end of June I turned 21, a time that is made out to be a right-of-passage of sorts when in actuality it just means one can imbibe in public under certain strictures and not be deathly afraid of the law. But I was excited because of the access the big 2-1 afforded me. I am no longer unable to enter social spaces because I was not born before “this date” in 1987 which is kind of a big deal. There are no spaces off limits to me now because of age, perhaps there are spaces I cannot enter due to my positionality (see Feminist Dilemmas in Fieldwork) or my secret cult status (or lack of one) but never again will I stop a group of friends from entering a bar wailing “I’m still 20!”
However, I was perplexed with how I was to celebrate this birthday that is so colored by the fact that it affords me with the ability to drink legally. Should I go out to a bar? Or should I just order a drink with my birthday dinner? The night before my birthday, a group of us went out to eat and we were carded at the door of the restaurant. (I don’t know about the southwest but in Connecticut you only get carded at restaurants if you are drinking. It made me wonder if it was a requirement to drink alcohol once you entered Del Charros) But anyway, of course I had to point out “Everyone, I’m still 20″. Party foul of the night: the date I popped out of the womb. Then my friends tried to get me in by pointing out the fact that I would be 21 in 4 1/2 hours. The bouncer apologized and said he couldn’t let me in but that I was welcome to “come back at midnight and take a shot.” I was as confused as I am at Bates when people throw rager parties on a Thursday night. I live at a zen center. I wake up at 6:30 in the morning to meditate. Needless to say I did not want to come back at midnight to take a shot. So at that point I cursed alcohol and its arbitrary regulations. And so I decided what I wanted to consume on my 21st birthday was not mass amounts of alcohol but mass amounts of meat. I wanted to be carried out of the restaurant not because I was vomiting, incoherent and dehydrated from dancing to Journey all night but because I would have too much protein in my body to function. It’s true, I wanted to get wasted on animal protein on my 21st. And as my birthday treat I didn’t want cake but I wanted a chocolate covered banana, which were available in the town plaza and which I frequently marveled at when passing by the store window because they are so unbelievably phallic. So, on the eve of my birth three lady friends and I headed out for sushi. Raw meat. It doesn’t get more delicious than that for someone who had been eating tofu and quinoa for a month. So after eating the raw flesh we headed to the infamous chocolate covered banana establishment. Here however, I made a mistake. When choosing my banana I chose the one covered in rainbow sprinkles, not the length-wise ones but the little spherical ones. Now the spherical sprinkles are problematic for 2 reasons: they taste terrible and they dye your fingers a brownish purple color. They just looked so good! A decent metaphor for life: the fantastic looking things often taste less than desirable and leave you stained. Read that as you will. Moral of this mini-narrative: steer clear of spherical sprinkles. Next time I will get the chocolate covered banana covered in almonds. And I will get one when my parents are here visiting. And I will ask them if they want a bite. My mom will say no. And maybe my dad will say yes.
Here are pictures of me and my birthday treat, the banana must have been genetically modified as it was huge. But boy, am I happy that I spent my 5 dollars not on a sub-par fruity margarita but a dessert that mirrors the universal signifier (see The Signifier and the Signified)
And now that I’m 21? I have had drinks in public. But holding a gin and tonic in a hipster bar does not feel the same as clutching a banana on a stick in the center on Santa Fe. It’s not better… just different.
Shhhh,
Steph
