La Fete du Jour

How's this for guts? This is a photo I received today. Yes, me, taken maybe seventeen or eighteen years ago.

Today is my birthday. There, I wrote it. I'm not big on my birthday. I prefer lower-key dinners or drinks, that begin after this date, January 19, and stretch for a week or so afterward.

One birthday, it may have been 1991, I was visiting a New York girlfriend who at the time, lived in the hills of Berkeley, CA. I took her dog and went for a hike up on one of those magnificent parks, but not before the phone rang. It was Mom, singing Happy Birthday, as she does every year. But I had forgotten it was my birthday.

I prefer to celebrate others' birthdays.

Still, I know that my friends want to acknowledge the date of my birth. And last week, a stylish woman I know sent me the following:

       One Word Description: Describe me in one word. Just one word. Send it to me only.Then send this message to your friends and see how many strange things people say about you.

I indulged. It seems appropriate for a birthday. I sent it to some forty individuals, from closest friends to strong acquaintances, with pointed inclusions and notable exceptions. The response rate was close to fifty percent, so I figure I did as well as a presidential election. Only about half of the American population shows up to vote for president, right?

Here they are. I've taken authorial liberty and added annotations. Because, after all, it is my birthday.

Sharp! (From one of my girlfriends in Boulder, CO, exclamation point un-redacted.)

Sophisticated (I got this one twice, from gals in the NYC coterie.)

Volcanic (From a girlfriend I know when we both worked at Columbia U.)

Dynamic (Another from the coterie.)

Vivacious! (Cousin T. He added: Joyously unrestrained. Oh my.)

Energeticupbeatwittyrealisticcreativeintelligentfriend (Can you tell this author is a downtown artiste-type? Brava.)

Pistol (From one of my girlfriends in science. I want to say "science" the way Thomas Dolby did on his single, She Blinded Me with Science.)

Intelligent (Ah, this from the top production editor with whom I worked during that Colorado stint. The "one word" I gave her in return is "heart.")

"Sociodextrous" (Quotes and all, a well-crafted "word." From a well crafted source, who provided an ad hoc definition: as in skillfully deft in any social environment. Bravo.)

Catty (Ooh la-la, this one from a Frenchman.)

Novel (From an Americaine writer in Paris.)

Confident (From one of the L'Acajou habituees. Alas, it closed.)

Clever (L-Diva.)

Intriguing (Hot Momma.)

Protective (La Latina.)

Animated (Another from our L'Acajou days. Sigh.)

Bleu (This is strong, from my sort-of mentor on the Front Range. My "one word" response for her is "challenge.")

Magnetic (The Voice of Reason, she followed up, and added: Unique and Extraordinary.)

Sagacious (The coterie again.)

Impossible (GV Wonder. Suck it up!)

Remarkable (My one and only friend from high school, yep: Monmouth Regional High School in Tinton Falls, New Jersey, Exit 105 off the Garden State Parkway. She's remarkable.)

Brilliant and Intelligent (Datomantrix.)

Bubbly (The coterie.)

Self-actualized (From another of the gals in Boulder, a good one, since I often josh that we Manhattan women are not allowed to live here unless we possess the following: a wardrobe whose main "color" is black, a cat, and a therapist.)

Cocktails later today? Maybe. Or not. I'll see where the day takes me.

It's winter in New York. Winter shots, au courant. Voila.

         

Joyeuse fete, peut etre.

Comments

[Etherangel]

Hmmm. One word. Just one? Okay, then. Irrepressible. As in...a great burst of irrepressible joy. Or, an irrepressible sense of humor.

How about a derivative?

She is, after all, irrepressibly beautiful.

Happy Birthday.

[Liz T. Jr.]

Ok, listen....
it's a hard one, like me i'm sure some are still looking up words to match you up with!
As soon as i got your mail, i went online to look up translation from french as all the complex descriptives came up in my native language.... and the answers weren't comprable to the french intensity! French is so much more complex, so much richer (nothing against english - just simpler!!!) But the point is that there isn't ONE word to describe you!

So i'm working on making up one that would equal to you... I'm on it! It might go along the lines of....Thighighllicioustasticmagnummonumentalistic!

I LOVE YOU
Joyeux Annnnniversssssaire

[JAB]

Holly...Please have a day as special as you are...

[GVWonder]

HBD HH! IMNVS!

ILY, BCNU L8R.

GVW

[Manny]

The woman so nice, we call her H-Twice! Happy Birthday! I miss my slice of home out here in Colorado.

[PYT]

Happy Birthday!!! (Sorry I am a few days late... I would have loved to celebrate your birthday with you).

One word- Impressionable.

You definetely leave people with something to remember about you where ever you go, and whomever you meet. It's a great thing to be remembered.

- PYT