Birthdays 1998-2005: A Review (Scroll to the bottom for 10 things I want to do before I'm 30)

Today I am only 10 years away from being able to run for president. Today I exit the highly desirable 18-24 age bracket and enter a less coveted demographic. Today I am, at long last, able to rent a car without penalty of exorbitant underage fees.

Today I am 25. A whole friggin quarter of a century. Whoop-de-doo. My best friend from high school teased, "HA! You're half of 50!" I told my grandmother about this and she said, "Well, I guess that makes me half of 150. Hey -- that sounds pretty young!"

According to the Death Clock, I'm going to kick it on my brother's 68th birthday, on February 16, 2060. Special thanks to TEd for this cheery link [oh, and TEd, thanks for the link to my rapture post; I just made my round o' blogs today and saw it. From what I know of butterflies, most are commies and, therefore, oppose state-sponsored religion. Or so I've heard]. So, I'm going to die when I'm 79. Only 54 years to go!

Ugh, but that means 54 more birthdays...I'm not so good at birthdays any more. I used to love my birthday. I used to like it more than Christmas because it was all about me, wonderful, glorious me. Then people starting combining my birthday and Christmas -- "Here's your birthday-slash-Christmas present" -- and even though it's not about the presents, blah, blah, blah, it still sucks. If your birthday were in June, you wouldn't expect anyone to give you a birthday/Christmas present because that is lame. If you have December-born friends, and you slash up their birthday, cut it out and stop screwing them out of a present; it's not fair.

Aside from losing my birthday presents to Christ, my last few birthdays have kind of sucked all on their own. Maybe I'm putting too much pressure on myself to have a good time; maybe I hang out with losers, I don't know. What follows is a review of the birthdays of my quasi-adult life, rated for your convenience on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being a total crapfest; 1 being a mud-wrestling-midgets-good time).

18th Birthday I started the morning of my 18th birthday in therapy. I was ordered to go by my school because one meddling English teacher thought that I might be suicidal since I didn't turn in a few assignments on Tess of the d'Urbervilles (this was around the time that I came to grips with the fact that I don't like fiction. Period). I was kinda depressed/stressed around this time because I was (needlessly) worried about getting into college, but I was not suicidal. I just wanted to get the fuck out of high school as quickly as possible. The doctor gave me Prozac, anyway, because that's what a lot of these doctors do -- they just throw around drugs. Prozac wasn't bad, though it did totally squash my appetite, so I lost a few pounds, making me feel a little better.

I left the doctor's office for the airport, as I had a debate tournament at the University of Michigan that weekend. Oh, I was such a debate geek -- not only was I captain of the team for two years, but I spent every summer of high school at debate camp at the University of Michigan. God, I'm cool.

My debate partner (the one who reminded me that 50 divided by two is 25) and I did pretty well, considering the caliber of the teams we were up against. I remember cutting up articles for arguments on the flight from Atlanta to Detroit -- something we would never be allowed to do now, of course. Ah, those were the days.

Score: 6.5/10. No one wants antidepressant prescriptions forced on them on their birthday.

19th Birthday I had sex. For the first time. With a frat boy. In the study lounge in my dorm. Need I say more?

Score: 7/10. Not that I expected candlelight and rose petals for my first time, but I could have done better than a good ol' boy from Virginia passing out on top of me while laying on tacky 1970s furniture. I think I was just looking for an end to Virginity Quest '99.

20th Birthday Oh, this one is a gem. I had an evening geology lab on my birthday. Most nights (that I remembered to go to it), I faced the 40-minute walk home in the dark by myself. On my birthday, my boyfriend was kind enough to offer to pick me up from lab and drive me to the dinner we'd planned with my friends. Since it was December in Montana, and therefore, very cold and snowy, I thought this was the least he could do.

So, I waited outside the science building for the boyfriend. Then I waited some more. Then, after that, I kept waiting. Eventually, I called his house (I knew no one with a cell phone at this time).

Me: "Hey, is everything okay?"

Him: "Yeah. I'm just playing a video game. What are you up to?"

Me: "I'm at the science building...waiting for you."

Him: "Why are you waiting for me?"

Me: "Because you said you'd pick me up..."

Him: "Why would I pick you up?"

Me: "Because it's my birthday?"

Him: "Your birthday's next week."

Me: "Nooo...I'm pretty sure it's today."

After he decided to believe me, he finally came to pick me up and we drove to meet my friends at Sushi Hana.

It was the foggiest night I had ever seen -- one of those where you can't see across the street, let alone the car in front of you. So, the drive was a little scary. It got much scarier when my boyfriend's car died as we turned onto a major road. One moment, the motor is humming along; the next moment, the car is silent as we coasted into the shoulder. We rolled into a parking lot and used all of our spare change to call the restaurant repeatedly, trying to get a hold of my friends (again, a few cell phones would have been handy here; oh, how quickly technology changes).

We finally did, and my friend Emily came to pick us up. I got into the backseat of the car where I met a guy who I had seen before -- shooting up heroin with is dorm room door open. I didn't even know Emily knew they guy -- and she didn't really. I still have no idea why she brought him along.

We arrived at the sushi place and met our other friends. As soon as we got there, though, Heroin Harry started complaining loudly. "Gawwwd, this place smells like fish." He wasn't even trying to be funny. "Gawwwd, are you going to eat that junk? That's disgusting."

I ignored him for the most part and was thrilled when he got up to leave. But then he came back. With a sandwich from Arby's. "Gawwwd, this is so much better than that shit you're eating." He was charming. The best was when he ate my green tea ice cream when I was in the bathroom. No one at the table could stop him. I think they were afraid.

Score: 9/10. Spending the evening with a dessert-stealing drug addict? Fearing for my life as we cruise down the road in a powerless vehicle? Being forgotten by a loved one? What more could a girl ask for!

21st Birthday I started my day with a trip to the plasma bank and a pap smear, so what could go wrong? A few of my friends who were present for the 20th birthday debacle decided that they were going to plan a cool, crackhead-free birthday for me. "We're going to take you out for a good time! We'll take care of everything -- we'll make reservations, invite everyone, we'll do it all!"

I found out later that that meant I would be picking everyone up and driving to the restaurant where I would pay for my own dinner, but only after listening to them ridicule me as I got dressed to go out. You see, I had just mysteriously lost 12 pounds, so none of my clothes fit and I had scary Nicole Richie arms. I wasn't trying to lose weight, as I was in a good place to begin with; somehow, though, some of me disappeared. Twelve pounds is a huge deal when you're only 5'1". It wasn't pretty...and my very good friends let me know.

After dinner, I wanted to go out because it was, after all, my 21st birthday. But everyone bailed because they had to study (hey you college professors out there: why do you people assign so much work in the two weeks BEFORE finals?) or because they weren't yet 21. So, after I drove everyone home, I called up a "secondary" friend -- you know, someone I was friendly with, but who I had never really hung out with before.

We went to a few bars and had a good time. I was dancing in a crowd at one place, when my new buddy approached me, with a freshman guy, who looked vaguely familiar, trailing behind her. "BPW, I got you something," she said as she literally handed the freshman over to me. Uh, okay...

I danced with the guy, and la-di-da, later at my place we were naked on my futon when I realized how I knew the freshman.

Me: "Oh shit! I know you -- you're on my caseload! I'm your advisor!"

Him: "Oh yeah! Hey, thanks for telling me not to take Professor Justman's class -- I really dodged a bullet on that one."

Me: "You have to change your major. Tomorrow. I'll do it for you."

After some academic discussion, he confided that I was the oldest girl he had ever slept with.

Score: 7/10. Because the pap smear was the highlight of the day. Oh, and I set my hair on fire drinking a Flaming Blue Lamborghini.

22nd Birthday This one would get a better score were it not so bittersweet. I had dinner and a few beers with my real friends -- the ones I'm still in contact with. I won a cool pint glass at pint night at my favorite bar, and I was home by 10:30. No mysterious junkies, no making fun of my body, no pap smears, no one-night stands. It was a good night.

That day, though, I had just gotten the job at the Nature Center and was supposed to start in a few weeks. So, that night was the last time I got to hang out with all of my friends before having to move across country.

Score: 2/10. It was sad saying goodbye to everyone. :(

23rd Birthday I was not invited to my own birthday party at work. It was the first night of our big holiday hoo-ha, and I was out on the trail fixing the Christmas lights because none of them worked. I went back into the office to refill my staple gun, where the surly secretary said, "Where were you? We've all been sitting in the breakroom waiting for you?" She then said that "we may have left you a piece of cake."

Score: 7/10. I didn't have any friends at this time. It was a sad, sad night.

24th Birthday The Ex Boyfriend and I went camping at John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park. This trip was kind of a bummer ... I'm just not sure that either one of us wanted to be in Key Largo that weekend. For example, we forgot pretty much every important item because we weren't really in the mood to plan the trip. The highlight was when we came back from dinner and found a raccoon sitting in our tent eating a bag of tortilla chips.

Score: 5/10. Things started getting weird between us during the trip. We broke up not too long after.

Holy crap, are you still reading this?

My big plans for my 25th? Well, I'm going to work (whee!) and I may go down to the beach bar later. Nothing out of the ordinary -- and hopefully it will stay that way.


10 things I want to do before I'm 30:
1. Use the word akimbo in a game of Scrabble.
2. Get something other than my work-related articles published
3. Figure out what I want to be when I grow up
4. Find wuv, twoo wuv
5. Wash my dishes
6. Change the template on this blog (I'm trying, Jenna!)
7. Pay off a credit card (god, I am funny)
8. Buy a car cooler than my minivan
9. Visit family in god-forsaken Ohio
10. Finish all the knitting projects I've started this year