I'm old. (And my landlord is still a she-devil).

That's right. I am. I turned 27 this weekend. Not that it's a particularly interesting age to turn. After all, I don't qualify for any special senior citizen discounts. And I'm still probably going to be carded everywhere I go, because despite a few gray hairs, I look 15. I’ve found, however, that a little birthday hoopla really helps to dull the pain of getting older. And this weekend, that’s exactly what I got, for better or worse.

Friday night, my brother and a few friends took me to a concert at Radio City. The line-up had me pretty excited: The Roots (my favoritest group), Erykah Badu (like her music, love her hair, think she has enough attitude for most of the southern hemisphere), and Mos Def (I enjoy him). What I didn't bargain for was the line-up of surprise guests like Bilal, Slum Village, and a strange chick from LA in an Indian headdress. But the icing on this hip hop cake was when Dave Chapelle showed up to do a set and Jay-Z just "stopped by" to close the show. I might have to retire from show-going after this one.

It seemed like the beginning of a fantastic birthday weekend.

That was until I was woken up at 8 am by the construction going on all over my building. Particularly right next to my window. Which is right next to my bed. So they might as well just be hammering and nailing INTO MY EAR. Now, I'll let slide the fact that my oh-so-delightful landlord started all this construction without warning any of us tenants. And I understand it takes a while to take an ugly building and make it more ugly with bootleg aluminum siding. And I also realize it’s not my building so they can do what they want. But for the love of God, does this have to occur on a SATURDAY MORNING? Have you no shame?

So I did what any strong-willed tenant would do who is past reasoning with her she-devil of a landlord: I filed an anonymous complaint. And they swore it would be anonymous. So how my landlord knew that the complaint came from my apartment is beyond me. And now I'm wondering if I should file a complaint about the way they handled my c0mplaint. Lord.

But I willed the day to get better. And slowly it did. My boyfriend made me a lunch of champions. (Well, not actually one that you could use as fuel to compete with because it gave me food coma, but it was very delicious.) But what’s a delicious lunch without a snafu? Elon forgot to check the ingredients in the cheesecake he presented me, to see if there were nuts, a food to which I'm deathly allergic. And for once, I didn’t check either. What resulted was me downing Benadryl like it was going out of style, trying not to hyperventilate, and then making him feel worse by saying "how could you not check?!" Who's an ass? It's me!

But fear not, blog readers. I survived. I dragged myself out of my Benadryl coma and got myself together for my joint party with two of my close friends, Raquel and Tamar. Walking over to the party, I felt more in the mood to stay in my room and sulk like a teenager. It had just been a very long day. But there’s something about getting lots of friends together, the party spirit, receiving lots of hugs and well wishes, and a late night drunken conversation with a group of ten about sex, that can turn any frown upside down, (if we're going to throw down a cliché.)

The moral of this long-winded story? Sometimes life gives you allergic reactions, lemons, and loud construction early in the morning. It's up to you to make allergic reaction, loud construction lemonade. And if you can garnish it with a side of people that care about you, all the better...