3/30/2026
this weekend, i celebrated my 23rd birthday! i had the whole day planned out on saturday. i went birding in the morning at a lake. i saw many birds, my favorite of which was an american white pelican that was growing a fibrous horn on its bill to attract mates! i had no idea they did that. i totally thought it was sick at first before i looked it up. pelicans are some of my favorite birds to observe.
i love the way they glide over the water and i love watching them catch food! i love to watch any diving bird to be honest... terns, cormorants, osprey, etc!

afterwards my friends and i got lunch at my favorite, somewhat dubious, chinese-vietnamese restaurant. yummy, relatively cheap, questionably sanitary. never change, somewhat dubious chinese-vietnamese restaurant...
after that, i planned a hike in a redwood forest nearby! it was a lovely hike, though definitely longer than i had planned, though i didn't mind. i actually quite enjoyed it, even though we got a little confused on the way back. it ended up alright! and it was a nice walk in my opinion. the forest smelled awesome, as redwood forests always do.
i went home after that to have cake with my family. strawberry mocha! my mom was looking for strawberry shortcake for me, but they didn't have it, so she got the next best thing. i didn't mind, as long as it had strawberries on it. to be honest, i wouldn't have minded at all, no matter what kind of cake it was! after cake, i got ready to go to an emo show in the city. a band that i liked was playing. the show was crazy crazy fun! i went really hard. i got super inebriated and i danced on the stage and dove off of it and danced with strangers. i went to a bar where i had more alcohol and took cute photobooth pictures with my pals. we went to a club where there was a live cover band playing songs that were aptly fitting for a cover band at a bar in a relatively white neighborhood and i got a little destructive with it, to say the least. i woke up with seventeen bruises. fun night!

the next day i woke up with a slight hangover at my partner's house. i got dim sum with him and my immediate family which was really nice. my hangover got better and i got a free birthday blindbox from miniso. i got cinnamoroll wearing a bear costume in a little striped shirt and hat. after dim sum (which was super yummy)(i was so incredibly full) my partner and i walked around a random city, then we went to a rose garden! the rose garden was awesome. i had never been there while the roses were actually blooming. it's crazy because you can smell them as you're walking into the garden! it wasn't super overwhelming, but it was definitely there. it was really light and green and floral, kinda like really yummy tea. we laid in the grass for a bit before grabbing dinner and then heading home.
overall a really relaxing way to spend the weekend of my 23rd birthday :3 here's to an awesome 23rd revolution around the sun.