Birthday

Is it self-indulgent to write a post on your birthday?  I guess it is in line with keeping a blog on your life and travels.  Birthdays are strange affairs.  You start out totally ignorant about them while parents crowd around and make a huge fuss. Then you get into them and get obsessed with cakes and wrapped presents.  Later in teenage years they may become popularity contexts; or the affirmation of the absence of popularity.  And later on there may be an unsettling feeling regarding the passing of the years...

This particular birthday didn't really fit into any of the above categories actually.  Despite being one of those events that is about 'you' yet you don't really get to have in-depth conversations because of hosting responsibilities, the evening was very enjoyable in the end.  People brought all manner of home-cooked food, which basically covered all the table and presented a gastronomic challenge to the guests.  There was an inspiration sharing session half-way through (a bad habit of mine is to turn social events into experimental workshops), which I was curious about people reactions to.  Such processes tend to polarise a general (non self-selecting) audience - some people were really into it, others seems to be trying to find places under the table to hide.  One highlight was a friend Satish's improvised didgeridoo performance using a vacuum-cleaner hose. 

To round out the evening, around midnight the remaining guests ascended the single flight of stairs to the rooftop where myself and my French friend Melody tested out our home-made fire-staff and fire-poi (which we stayed up to midnight the previous night making out of curtain rods, jeans, chains and wire).
To my surprise and the audience's relief we didn't cause any major combustion or conflagration in our fire dancing.  There's nothing quite like hearing the roar of the flame rushing past you, feeling its heat in the night air, and smelling the thick smoke...