B'day Presents You May Not Want to Receive in 2004

Saturday, May. 29, 2004 3:34 p.m.

Updated 9 August 2004

I'm crap at thinking up good presents to give to people on their birthdays. (Note to regular readers: This entry may seem like a repeat of this, but I assure you it's not. Read on.)

I didn't use to be crap.

When I was younger, which is as good as saying "in my former life", because it seems so long ago when it's only 10 years back, I was much, much better at gift-giving. I could find just the right thing, given what limited budget I was on, for the birthday person. I took pride in it. I was into the details too, like how it should be wrapped, in what paper and what card to accompany the gift, that sort of thing.

Nowadays I'm a lazy and poor-as-churchmouse bitch.

After I'm done paying the rent and the bills and the tithe (to my mother, that is), I have just enough to feed myself and maybe buy a CD. Truly. It's hard to make people understand this because 99% of people I know who are single still live with their parents and have loads of disposable income if they're as gainfully employed as me (for reasons why they still live with their parents, see this entry). So I have fuck all to spend on other people. Only if I really, really like/love them would I make myself substitute grass and wild mushrooms gathered after the rain for lunch, or forgo that little I have left from my salary to buy a CD, so that I can buy something for them.

And then comes the next headache. What the hell do I give them?

So here, I have made a list of things that I can afford as birthday presents for people, and that I personally feel are cool to have/use. I don't know yet who will receive what. So y'all (i.e. regulars) better look at this list and quickly drop me a note and tell me which one you'd like for your birthday (sorry, I don't do international shipping, unless you are prepared to pay the cost, which you obviously won't. So you dolls from the US and Canada and wherever else, I'll send you a Blue Mountain e-card for now. *sheepish grin*). Now, now, no guarantee that when the time comes I will have the dough to get it, but I will try my darndest. Okay, let's get on with it.

Birthday Presents I Will Try to Buy for Others This Year

  1. Ali G: Bling Bling DVD. For nights when you have no date and you need a good laugh.

  2. The Natural Source hair masque. It fixes your dry hair like MAGIC and you should see it for yourself. This went to YY, 8 August 2004

  3. Sigg water bottle. They look cool and we will all remember to drink the recommended 8 glasses a day if we have a cool water bottle to drink from.

  4. Dinner at Siem Reap (this nice Cambodian restaurant at Holland Village).

  5. T-shirts from The Engrish.com Store. Choose from a mind-boggling array of colours and crap-English captions. I have my eye on two of those things myself: the "Fack You Man" and the "No Smorking".

  6. Big bottle of women's multivitamin tablets (90). Because every woman, especially ageing golden girls like me, should take them, but most are too lazy to.

  7. Silly knick-knack from Lim's Arts & Crafts, Holland Village. This will range from a set of chopsticks to ashtrays to votive candles.

  8. A pair of knickers. NOT from Victoria's Secret because the last time I ordered something from them, the size was wrong (even though according to the size chart it was the only size I should have asked for) and the bloody peasant top had smocking, which was strategically hidden in the catalogue by the svelte model who had her arm across her waist as she half-lay on the grass. Trickery! Trickery! Also K told me his female friends have bought stuff there and complained that the lace is scratchy. So, something from Blush! or Marks & Spencer maybe.

  9. A lipstick. (L & Mas, I could get you the lipstick too. One colour fits all, eh? *winks*)

  10. A book. Paperback, no first editions or new arrival hardcovers. I like to encourage people to read.

You can judge for yourself if I am indeed self-aware (therefore crap at presents) or self-deprecating.

I am running late for a coffee appointment with dklwm. See ya.

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