HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME! Yes indeed it is January 30th and it's my birthday!
I won't go into details but it's been a pretty traumatic past few years with dizzying highs and dreadful lows. But in just the last week some changes for the better have come about. I am looking forward to the future with hope for the first time in a while.
I am super excited for my birthday lunch I'm having tomorrow with several close friends in the greatest city in the world: Manhattan! So to give them and you, the general public, ideas for gift picks. These are a few of my very own Fab Finds!
I love perfume. Seriously. Something about having a great perfume on my neck just makes me walk taller. No drug store stuff for me. I learned from my late Grandmother OC (who bought so much Avon she should have owned stock in them) that cheap perfume isn't worth it.
My current personal faves are Roses de Chloe and Cartier Goutte de Rose.
Okay I got a rose thing. It IS my name.
So either of these perfumes would make a great gift OR a gift certificate to Sephora, Macy's or even Century 21 (they sell steeply discounted perfume sets) would be a great idea.
"Well that's the body" you're asking "what about the mind?" If you know me, you know how hard I work my library card. I love to read. I still haven't read Lena Dunham's book of essays entitled "Not that kind of girl" or Neal Patrick Harris's "Choose your own Autobiography", Amy Poehler's " Yes, Please" or Marni Flechters novel about upscale party planners, "Royal Entertainment."
"But hey Cameron," you say " You don't want to end up with 12 copies of 'Not that kind of girl' even though Lena Dunham IS your spirit animal, do you?"
Well in that case why don't you just give me a gift card to Book Culture. I am in so in love with that place and I am so happy that New York City's Upper West Side finally has a small independent bookstore. Nora Ephron's "The Little Shop Around the Corner" was eerily prescient about the loss of small independent bookstores. The place used in the film is now a laundry.
"Well Cameron" you continue "Is there anything you do to treat yourself on your birthday?" (did you drink a big glass of 'good question' juice before you started reading this?)
Yes there is! I usually treat myself to a reading by an amazing man, Joshua the Psychic. I've known him for years, even invited him to a few Fashion Week events. Sadly New York lost him to the wilds of Los Angeles. But he still does readings by phone and email. This year I just don't have room in the budget to talk to him, so a gift certificate (he does offer them!) would be a fantastic present.
Of course some of you are no doubt saying "that's all well and good but I don't really know you very well and I certainly don't like you enough to spend money on you. Is there something I can do for you that will require no money and almost no effort?"
My goodness you are awfully chatty today aren't you?
Actually there is! On January 2nd at 2:50am I participated in the Metropolitan Room's official attempt to break the Guinness book of world records with a marathon variety show. I was there with Broadway Sings for Pride to support Rebecca Larkin during the show.
I overheard someone say some performers canceled and casually walked up to the manager and asked him if they needed any extra people. I had a whole speech prepared as to why he should let me perform 10 minutes of stand up. I never got to make my speech. He was shoving forms for me to sign in my face before I finished the sentence. My dear friend Neal Bennington recorded the whole thing! So watch it, and give it a thumbs up, and that's how you, gentle reader, can give me a birthday gift with the least amount of time and effort possible!
But as always my greatest gift is being friends with the amazing and wonderful Bridgette Raes who kindly let's me write these columns, lets me hunt down products and request free samples that she lets me keep!
And of course I am grateful for you gentle readers. Without you I'm nothing.
