My 40th birthday with Sting and the Police

My 40th birthday happened in August. Unfortunately for me, it occurred simultaneously with my giant housing disaster. I was panicked and anxiety ridden about trying to find a new place to live and the fact that I had to come up with more than a months salary to put down a deposit to live and was losing my deposit from the apartment I was currently in. Instead of renting the beer bike with my good Dutch friends here and having a riotous day of drunken debauchery, I had a small gathering with a few people in my apartment where I drank a bit too much wine on an empty stomach and tried to keep the anxiety at bay. My dream party - flying to New York City, partying with Brian and Kevin, Bernice, Alec, my sister, and other assorted friends and then going to see the Police on their reunion tour was not to happen.

So tonight, I'm going to do what I really really wanted to do - I'm going to go see the Police in concert. Unfortunately, I'm basically going alone because noone I knew wanted to go with me and another friend bought tickets to the event and never called to see if I was interested. But I don't mind. It'll be me and Sting singing to each other, making eye contact, and falling in love all over again like we did when I was 15.

Yes, I'm still bitter that my parents never let me go to the Police's final concert tour in Greensboro, NC because I was too young! I've seen Sting in concert a number of times but Sting's solo persona is a bit too blandly romantic for me. I prefer the sunbleached punk rock bassist with the sexy mouth from Zenyatta Mondatta, Outlandos d'Amour, and Regatta de Blanc. Synchronicity and Ghosts in the Machine are not my favorite albums but my favorite song comes from Ghosts in the Machine --"Every Little Thing She does is Magic" - coincidentally, those lyrics were presented to me by Gene Matthews my freshman year in high school when he attempted to tell me that he was in love with me.

I still remember listening to the first album of their's I ever bought - "Regatta de Blanc". I had to do a poetry project for my Junior year's advanced English class. I chose the song "Message in a bottle"and I attempted to paste photos that reflected my lonely outcast teenage angst feelings onto a wine bottle. In particular, I clearly remember photos from Iceland of a man that looked like Sting sitting in a lonely thermal pool in the mountains.

I sang "So Lonely" into my college boyfriend, Nick Leoncavallo's answering machine when he was away on a trip. I have consoled myself with "Can't Stand Losing" when life hasn't gone my way and cried to "the Bed's too big without you" when I have been heart broken. I analyzed "Wrapped around your finger" and told everyone it was written in Iambic Pentameter like the pretentious English major to be I was. I listened to "King of Pain" late at night in my bedroom. I danced riotously to "De doo doo doo, de daa daa daa" and wanted to be the subject of "Don't stand so close to me" with my English professor in college.

I can't imagine my life without the Police so here's to my 40th and here's to tonight.