So I’m sitting here, trying very hard to maintain concentration, which we all know isn’t one of my strong suits to begin with, and trying to think about something, ANYTHING, to write about instead of writing about what has happened today.

I know it’s not in my best interest to publicize what should be a private matter between friends, but I’m just a bit worked up and so baffled by the lunacy that is my life today that I can’t go without talking about it.

First, let me use the huge disclaimer that a lot of you aren’t going to understand this, and it’s fine. I’m not using this medium to prove a point to anyone nor am I using it to state a rebuttal or a response. I’m using it to sort out my thoughts and say a few general things about friendship.

We all know I’m a dreamer, a romantic, and I’ve been known to glamorize things in the past and have thus ended up disillusioned. I’ve defended ex-boyfriends to friends who said they were bad for me, that they didn’t treat me well enough, that I deserved better. In the end, my friends were right, and I was to blame for not listening to them more closely, or for not listening to said boyfriend at the time when he showed his true colors. Despite me ignoring their advice now and again, I adore my friends. As an only child, they are my family. They are the frequent subject of my entries here, and I am 100% honest when I say I don’t know what I would do without them.

And thus I’m faced with this possibility right now – losing a friend. And it breaks my heart.

Girl-friends and Guy-friends bring two very different viewpoints to any discussion and to any relationship. There are things I would never discuss with a guy, mostly of the gynecological nature, yet there are also topics that I feel I get better advice from them on. Take relationships. If I’m torn up about why so-and-so hasn’t called or what he’s thinking, I go to my support network of adorable guy friends who unfallibly tell it like it is, give me good advice, and throw in a (much needed) compliment or two before sending me on my merry way. I’ve often said that the only thing missing in Atlanta would be a best friend that was a guy. (I did have one once, but made the mistake of hooking up with them, a line that should never be crossed, and a story for another time, another place.)

Which brings up a good point – am I on the “Harry” side or the “Sally” side of guys and girls being able to be just friends? I’d lean towards the Harry side, since I believe most great guy-girl friendships include an element of flirtation, if not straight out sexual tension. Will you – should you – act on it? Usually, no. Is it harmless? For the most part. It only gets tricky when one person realizes that their feelings are stronger than friendship, and since this is not the case in this story, I digress.

This story is about what I’d like to call the ‘blood vs. water’ phenomenon, what happens when a guy-friend and a girl-friend and a girlfriend (the real type, the one that the guy-friend sleeps in the bed with) come head to head. When one feels threatened, when one thinks boundaries are crossed, when one feels mistreated or disrespected or ignored or angered or anything that upsets the dynamic, it’s messy. It’s REALLY messy. Everyone thinks they’re right. Everyone KNOWS they have a valid point, and everyone hates being in the middle. Emotions get involved and next thing you know it’s a Celebrity Death Match between ‘girl-friend’ and ‘girlfriend’ with ‘guy-friend’ as the referee.

And when things really get out of control, it comes to the point where guy-friend is either told or feels like he has to choose between the two of them. It’s a lose-lose situation, friendships are changed, feelings are hurt, and nobody comes out winning.

And it sucks.

Welcome to my week.

The book on my coffee table promises answers to the mysteries of life, of love, based on the day of your birth. There are three in the series, the other two being relationship and destiny, and I intentionally have kept them on my coffee table for years now, if only to see my guests flock to them, time and time again. They look to the words inside for validation of their faults, their frailties, their foibles, because if they’re a Taurus, they’re ALLOWED to be stubborn. If their relationship isn’t working out -well, you see right here, it’s just not written in the stars. And if you’re a Gemini, you’re ALLOWED to celebrate your birthday three weekends in a row.

It’s comforting to see that I’m not the only one…Sarah Brown, while not necessarily wearing a grass skirt and coconut bra or touting her birthday just six days past as an excuse for yet another celebration, at least is as semi-fixated as I am. (And we all know that is a gigantic compliment coming from me.) Though I didn’t have the Flaming Lips sing me a birthday song as she did, I was the recipient of no less than thirty-one fantabulous birthday voicemails. (I hope you know I saved them all, since I was less than cognizant when they truly arrived.) The cards are aligning my mantle, the presents – well, they’ve humbled and overwhelmed me with generosity. And even when I’m laying in bed until 6:30pm, a recovery mechanism for the fifth birthday celebration in just eight days, well, it makes it a bit more bearable.

I know, I know – I turn 26 and get all reflective and sappy and girly and [insert negatively connated wuss adjective here] but deal, people. I’m lucky. I’m grateful. And, until nearly 7pm tonight, I was hungover.

Yes, there are some puzzle pieces greatly missing in the second weekend of the celebration of the 26th anniversary of my birth. Such as whether or not I really did make it to Neighbors to eat Chicken Nachos with my hands, whether I won the chicken fights at Franzia Fest 2K3, and whether my liver and I will ever again be on speaking terms after the debauchery I put it through. (I’ve promised it, as well as my faltering synapses, a day or two of rest in preparation for the true festivities, the party this Saturday.)

We swam,

We cajoled,

We cavorted,

We camaraderized.

And when all was said and done, it was a riot. We’ll need our rest, mind you, but it was worth it.

That is, it WILL be worth it when somebody fills me in on why my bottom lip has had no feeling for the past two days.

Anyone? Anyone?

There is a gnome running around in my brain doing the macarena or another intolerable line dance. He is gyrating on my medulla oblongata, limboing under my hypothalamus, and doing the cha-cha around my amagdala. He has on a cactus coat, causing shooting pain when he falters in his kickboxing exercises near the front of my head.

My friends, I feel like a pile of ass.

Jello shots are the nectar of the devil, and I have only myself (and a friend who would prefer to remain nameless, being that he’s a hotshot lawyer and all) to blame. It was HIS party where I imbibed, HIS great idea to have me do the blue jello shots, and HIS choice of having said party on a Thursday night that is causing the aforementioned gnome to send me to my own personal hell. It was HIS idea to walk to the bar, HIS friend who I sent to buy me some much-needed Tums, and HIS idea to continue on the debauchery. Yet it was MY idea to have 10 of the jello shots on an empty stomach.

To add insult to already-painful insufficient brain injury, NOBODY will go with me to indulge in the only known hangover cure of greasy food. If I have to order takeout from Max & Erma’s, I’ll succumb. If somebody could make a cheeseburger with ketchup, mushrooms, barbecue sauce (preferably Sweet Baby Ray’s), I’d be their sex slave or their Best Friend Forever, depending on their gender.

The following requests would make me feel less like a worthless mid-week quasi-alcoholic:
1. If you know Paul Walker, or have any ties to ANYONE who knows Paul Walker, or can somehow get his phone number, please, for the Love of God, email me with it. He has made his way to #1 of my Top 5 list and I bet he’d love to know that I’ll willingly bear his children. (Or at least engage in actions that would foster that outcome.)
2. If you can teleport me some Goodies Headache Remedy, I’ve heard it works wonders. And I need a miracle.
3. If you could add some brake fluid to my car, I’d be forever grateful.
4. If you don’t know Paul Walker but could somehow get me in touch with any of the following, I’ll kiss you on the mouth. The list includes: Michael Vartan, Kirk Herbstreit, Heath Ledger, Matthew McConaughey (of my drunk dialing fame) and Scott Speedman. I’ll even throw in Ashton Kutcher for good measure.
5. If you could all CUT THE ATTITUDES today, I am in NO mood to deal with any of the following: stupid emails from people that do nothing but waste my time over a moot and ludicrous matter, clients that refuse to make any sense, people that get all pissy about an innocent email.

If you could get to these matters pronto, I’d appreciate it. In the meantime, I must stuff my face with this BBQ cheeseburger and prepare for the second of three ‘birthday weekends.’

I want to be somewhere I’m not.

Somewhere warm and balmy, palmy even, in the tree sense, that is…

I want the summer wind to wreak havoc on my hair as I drive down a water-lined highway, tousling and tangling and generally bastardizing any ‘do I could have come up with, branding me with the true feeling of late sunsets and wistful glasses and sunglass tans and salt water.

I want to be wearing my Reef flip-flops, with the rainbow tags, all distressed-leathery after being worn in by long days and laxidaisical attitudes.

I want to see magnolia trees and azalea bushes, riverboats and canoes and windsurfers, braving the cold without wetsuits, a badge of honor.

I want to be 14 again, scared and excited and nervous and anxious and hopeful, strategically planning our ‘route’ as we cruised in the humid evening air, looking for the objects of our affections.

I want to be riding in a car with my teenage crush, drinking a McDonald’s Orange Drink, the sugary sweet kind that they would serve after Little League games instead of the fake-replacement Hi-C drink that they pass off as an unequal facsimile these days.

I want to listen to a tape player in a beat-up old car, blasting “Boston” or “Foreigner”, rock bands that still knew how to rock that we discovered in the grunge era of the early 90’s and felt so retro-cool to be listening to while we flirted and flounced and illegally drank our way to our future.

We wanted to be somewhere else then – we wanted to be out of high school, out of college, in the real world.

We couldn’t wait for our lives to begin, couldn’t wait for the ‘next big thing.’ We wanted to cut class and kiss behind the church and smoke behind the Taco Bell and drink in front of the Subway, dodging cops as we attempted to comandeer our pithy little social lives into something more meaningful.

We wanted to breathe it all in, inhale the future, embrace the lives that we so wanted to be living.

And now we’re here, and we want to go back.

Or at least I do.

(But I’d settle for a McDonald’s Orange Drink.)

So I survived. Barely.

My Mom always says that when she turned 40, she realized that she was old enough to do what she wanted and not care about what people thought. I’ve apparently rationalized my 26th year to be just that.

As I sit here in my post-debaucherous lethargy, a state caused by three days of nonstop imbibation and the absence of any food save a bagel and a bit of some lasagna, I’m attempting to find witty and clever ways to describe my weekend. My friends, my brain may never recover, my nerves never again synapsing to their full glory. You see, I exceeded all expectations of a successful birthday weekend, with an exception that I’ll share at another time, another place.
Friday evening began with a soggy start, with me virtually prostituting myself for a ticket to Robert Earl Keen, causing me to decide that in my 26th year I should also look into becoming a scalper. My creativity is what landed me inside the glorious doors of the Variety Playhouse, as the scarcity of scalpable tickets caused me to invent a review of the show for a local magazine, and my persistance and the aforementioned lie wielded success.

Oh, glory. Give me a room full of cowboy hats, strong drawls and frattyhaired hunks, and Aubrey is a happy one. Actually, Aubrey is an even happier one when she orders three Bud Lights for herself and proceeds to drink them all within 15 minutes. Buy, drink, repeat was my modus operendi. The rest of the evening was a blur, I believe there was an incident with a cab driver at some point, and I also believe the exact location of my house was a questionable fact. Sleep ensued, on my couch, no less, with my cat’s heating pad over me like a blanket. One shoe was found outside, the other, under the couch. Contacts were intact, no money remained in the purse, and I kid you not, I slept until 6:10pm, a new record.

Alas, the fun continued…

Saturday evening, the hottest girls in Atlanta (myself included) convened at a charming Italian restaurant to rehash details of the evening prior and compare little sexual tidbits that I’ll refrain from repeating. Mass quantities of Italian food was consumed, and we successfully shocked the waitress by each ordering a family-sized portion ourselves. (Many leftovers also remained, though the current location of mine is unclear.) The festivities continued at a local watering hole where no water was consumed, though many – MANY – shots were. Some of the attendees continued their evening by practicing the art of french kissing with a willing participant or two; I remain silent on whether or not that list included myself.

And we’re on to Sunday, the culmination of what was already described by one participant as ‘the most surreal experience of [her] life.’ In this case, I’ll let the pictures do the talking, but one thing is clear: People are very generous when you walk around half naked.

Until next time, I remain, hungover.

So it’s coming down to the wire. 48 hours before I officially find myself at the ripe old age of 26. Thus far, I’ve already pissed off a bevy of you with my complaints about getting older, especially since many of you have already turned this magical age and would like me to shut my big fat mouth about it. I’ve heard “26!? Wait until you’re 30, and THEN get stressed.” Well let’s just say I’m trying out the stress early. Or, if not trying, at least accomplishing.

I know it sounds ludicrous, but this birthday isn’t being met with my usual jovial nature, rambunctious spirit and ebulliant energy. I used to scoff at people who dreaded their birthdays; after all, mine was a wonderful excuse to be as self-centered as I can be for days, if not weeks, on end. While jubilant festivities shall still ensue, they’re met with a dampened spirit. (And not only because it hasn’t stopped raining in nearly three months.)

I’ve been trying to figure out WHAT is causing my slump, my funk, my generally less-than-chipper attitude towards my impending día de cumpleaños. As sad, pathetic, and overwhelmingly disillusioned as it sounds, I just thought it would be more than this. It’s like that feeling you have when you’re right out of school and the initial excitement of a job wears off, and you find yourself slumped on the floor, crying to your parents or friends because, dammit, you just don’t KNOW what you want to do with your life and real life isn’t all it’s cut out to be. You have to go to WORK. Your coworkers treat you like the peon and lackey that your college degree was supposed to prevent. And you’re poor…OH, how you’re poor. Wasn’t it supposed to be like they show on television, where beautiful women have fun, fashionable jobs, dress to the nines, work hard but play harder (and meet equally good looking significant others who are virile, sexy as hell, and – most importantly – insanely smitten with them)? Isn’t that reality?

Only I’m NOT right out of school. Hell, it still scares me to think that I’m FOUR years out of school. And yet…
And yet…
And yet… is this all there is?

My life is great, No – my life is Fantastic. It honestly and truly is. I have full use of my arms, legs, mouth, hands, feet, etc., am not suffering from any life-threatening nor communicable diseases despite the lax attitude adopted towards taking my vitamins, FINALLY love my job, and my friends? Well, my cup runneth over. I’m incredibly blessed, incredibly lucky, making my seeming dissatisfaction with it all even harder to accept. If I’ve got it all, then why do I feel so incredibly ‘blah’?

Quarter-life crisis, perhaps? Well, I started reading that book awhile back, while in the midst of my own mini-breakdown over the personally unfulfilling nature of work, and all it did was depress me more. I’ve talked about this in the past, contemplating fate and life and love and decisions and I’m right back where I started – not knowing WHAT to do.

And I sit here, waiting for that ‘a-ha!’ moment, where the little cartoon lightbulb lights up over your head, a sure indication that you’ve got it, you’re on the right track – a moment of clarity, perhaps. It’s like we’re on the cusp of greatness (or at least not mediocre-ness), and it’s not yet determined whether we’re going to fall or fly. There’s a line in a song that goes “That jumping is easy, that falling is fun, up until you hit the sidewalk, shivering and stunned”, with which I completely identify.

We all innately, and often subconsciously, think that the world revolves around us. This isn’t a blatant act of self-centeredness, it’s more subtle. It’s along the lines of when you walk into a group who was all talking, and then they stop when you walk up, you think that they’re talking about you. It’s the putting-ourselves-firstness that causes us to think we deserve more, that very same thought that causes us ‘jealous guilt’ – the feeling of jealousy you get when one of your friends gets married or gets a better job than you, and you think “Why isn’t that Me?” and the guilt that follows since you’re not SUPPOSED to feel that way, you’re supposed to be happy for them. And you are, you truly are, but you’re envious in the same light.

So as I turn 26, surrounded by friends and family who love me and humor me and support me and lend me their ears and their shoulders and their advice after a typical bout of aubrey bad-decisionmaking, the people that deal with the brunt of my breakups and my disappointments and are the very same people that celebrate my successes and my victories, however small, and do things that seemingly mean so little, like drive me to the airport or take care of my cats or call me to see how I’m feeling, but really mean so much, that I’m ashamed I’m not proclaiming from the proverbial rafters that I love you all, that my life is the best it’s ever been, that this 26th year of my life will be the best of them all. I should be letting everybody know that my life is so rich with you all in it, that I’m completely astounded by everyone’s generosity and kindness and that I’m learning – I really am – that I don’t have all the answers and that where I am right now is probably just where I’m supposed to be.

Actually, I think I did just that.

If you have a new car, and they send you the paperwork to get your permanent tags, do not put off turning in your temporary tags until the day it expires.

In addition, after getting your permanent tags, do not put off safely adhering them to the back of your vehicle with the screws tightened as your father would do it.

If, for any reason, you decide that you’d rather go inside and go to the bathroom instead of immediately adhering the tags to the car, do NOT lay the tag on the back hood of the car with the top down as a reminder to you the next morning to then put the permananet tags on your car.

If you come downstairs on your way to work, after failing to install the tags the night before, do NOT check your laundry. You will therefore forget to see the ‘reminder’ that you placed the night before and fail to adhere your tags to the car before driving off to work with the top down.

If you realize, mid-drive, that you forgot to adhere the tags to your car, do NOT do a U-turn in the ghetto, almost taking out a crack whore and a man with one leg in a shopping cart. While you can backtrack and look for your tag, it is likely a futile endeavor.

If you still find yourself without a tag, and driving with a temporary tag that expired on June 4th, do not proceed directly to the DMV office as you think would be a good idea.

If you find yourself sent from the DMV office to the police precinct across the hall, do not tell them your real address. If you do this, they will apologize but send you BACK DOWNTOWN near your house to the City of Atlanta precinct to file a police report on a lost or stolen tag.

If you call the ‘helpful’ number provided by the ‘helpful’ policeman, do not expect them to call you back within an hour as they say they will.

If you find yourself filing a police report, keep it in your car at all times, which is now ghettified by the “Lost Tag” plate where your license plate, formerly shiny and all good-numbered and easily rememberable, would have been.

If you find yourself driving around, mortified by the fact that your wonderful new car is sporting a “Lost Tag” handwritten plate a la uninsured Mexicans and hoopdi drivers, consider yourself in good company.

When I was in high school, there was a girl who brought a knife to school. It was found in her locker, reportedly with a list of boys and girls that she wanted to stab, as well as a change of clothes. This is heresy, I hope you realize, as I never personally witnessed the items, but can attest to the fact that she was suspended, her entire schedule was changed, and her reputation was forever altered.

This girl was a loner, from what I can remember about her. She wore a lot of black and had a dour expression on her face at all times. While she was never initially in the ‘esteemed-to-be-included-in’ popular crowd, after the incident she was nothing less than a pariah.

The school newspaper was to run a cover story on this event, and due to the threat of a lawsuit, pulled it at the last minute. Instead, the entire front page of the paper was blackened, with the words ‘This is where the stabbing story would have gone’ – or something along those lines.

It made headlines all over the city, and became the topic of discussion in most of our classrooms. The editors had chosen to censor themselves instead of bear the threat of a lawsuit.

This happens too often. Currently, my friend is battling a lawsuit about censorship and free speech on the internet, which was covered in yesterday’s New York Times as well as on the AP Wires. (Click HERE for the story.) Whether divulging the facts as he saw them, however lacivious and sexual in nature, was the best decision isn’t what is at question here. Should he have told his details of hooking up with this less-than-bright pageant contestant? Maybe not. Should he have the right to? Absolutely.

First Amendment issues are especially sticky in this new ‘electronic age’, as the internet has allowed information to be disseminated at lightning speed and in a nearly unimaginable breadth. The courts have, thus far, strayed away from making rulings on what is allowable, basically because the medium is evolving so quickly and because, truly, there’s little if no way to do so. My company itself is the world’s leading Search Engine, providing much of this information that is now not only requested, but expected. Censorship just doesn’t have a place on the Web.

And yet we still see it. We see cases like Tucker’s above, and I see it myself on my own site. Though I’ve repeatedly said that I write for me before I write for you, the audience, I’ve found myself holding back based on the response. It infuriates me like nothing else. If I’m pissed off at someone, I want to be able to use my site as the vehicle that it is – for free speech. I want to lash out, angry, hurling insults at whomever has angered, hurt, or upset me. If you make me scream in frustration or make me cry, I want you to pay.

And yet I don’t. Why? Not because I’m scared – anyone who knows me well can attest to the fact that I rarely mince words. In fact, I’ve often put my foot in my mouth by speaking out of anger without thinking through the possible repercussions. In this case, via writing, I am afforded the luxury of time, the luxury of being able to craft and recraft my retort, my thoughts, my take on any situation. And still I don’t. And I’ve yet to come up with a compelling reason why not.

In the past, I felt like I got SOME of my just desserts by at least saying what I felt (even though it was months, and at times years, too late.) It helped, a bit. But the here and now – unfulfilled.

It may be an issue of pride. We’re told to take the higher road, to be the bigger person, to do the right thing. You know what? I’m tired of that. I’m TIRED of making the right decision and holding back and fuming inside and being hurt and taking it upon myself, as if this somehow was MY fault or something that I did, when it wasn’t. I’m tired of biting my lip or putting down the phone when really what I want to do is go off, asking the questions I want answers to and saying the things that I’ve thus far held back. I’m tired of censoring myself because that’s just the way things are. Life is too short to wonder.

I’ll consider it a birthday present to myself. Come Sunday, beware the fury of Aubrey, Uncensored. Consider yourself forewarned.

I love me a musician. Singers, to be specific.

There’s something just so inherently sexy about rock stars that weakens my knees and sends me all a-quivery. Not necessarily the Aerosmith/Rolling Stones/Any Major Band from the 80’s type (though Sting is definitely an exception), more of the Ben Folds/Lifehouse/Jackopierce variety.

Seriously, people, second to my asshole adoration affliction, the pattern is disturbing. They croon, I swoon.

I’ve always had a predilection for musicians – my ninth grade crush could play the piano, which I just thought was AMAZINGLY sexy in that way that sneaks up on you. I thought it was the appeal of having a ‘special talent’, but my adoration didn’t stop there.

Next, I was a quasi-groupie for a band called Third Wish, who even played my high school graduation party in a torrential thunderstorm like no other that caused the guests to wear my entire wardrobe during the mudfest acoustic session that later ensued. I can’t remember which of the guys I had a crush on, but suffice it to say it was more than one. I sigh just thinking about them.

The pattern continued into college, and apparently remains today. Give me a sexy lead singer (guitar playing only ups the stakes) and I’m transfixed. Enamored. Enchanted. It’s quite pathetic, actually, but it’s beyond my control.

Now, it’s not just being able to sing. Actually, a guy who will sing in the car for me, all proper and good-voiced, makes me think that he was in Show Choir in High School and thus needs to be hanging out with people of the Clay Aiken variety if you get my drift. I like my realistic men to sing like me – horrifically, but with gusto. But in fantasyland? Give me Jack O’Neil or Cary Pierce any day.

Which leads me to issue a formal apology or two:

Dear Mr. Security Guard,
I’m sorry I pushed past you in an attempt to break in backstage and stare adoringly at Jack O’Neil. You were correct in the fact that me having flirted with you earlier shouldn’t affect whether or not I could get backstage. And that ‘pass’ I said I had dropped in the toilet? Yeah. Didn’t exist.
Your Friend,
Aubrey

Dear Cary Pierce,
I’m really, REALLY sorry that you’re married. You’re smokin’.
Your Friend,
Aubrey

Dear Jack O’Neil,
I’m sorry that I tried to get backstage without a pass. You see, I really DID think that when you were pointing to the crowd, you were pointing at me. And when you sang that last song, I really DID think that you were looking at me. And I really DID think that you would want me to go back and kiss you senseless since you are the sexiest thing alive. I’m extremely sorry that I was mistaken about those facts, but even sadder that you COMPLETELY DENIED ME in front of the security guard when I said “Jack, tell him I can go back and hang out with you.” I suppose you didn’t know part of the reason I want to marry you is because my name would be Aubrey O’Neil O’Neil, but hey, now that you do? Next time, let me go backstage, and I’ll forgive you.

Oh, and one more thing…when you sing that song “Get to Know Me Better”, I hope you mean in the Biblical sense.

Your Lust-Ridden Fan,
Aubrey O’Neil O’Neil (I’m practicing)

PS: Did I mention that you’re the sexiest thing alive? I did? Ok. Just checking.

25.9 years.
9486.5 days.
227676 hours.
13660560 minutes.

Yep, I’m THAT old. If I lived on Mars (with all of the Men there, according to John Gray, at least), I’d be a mere 13.8 Martian years old. Despite my proclivity to complain about my advancing age, sans hubby and 2.5, I think I’d rather be nearly 26 than have to be 13 again. (I wonder if Martians go through adolescence?)

That notwithstanding, I know you fully expect me to wax lyrical on days gone by, detailing where I was a year ago and where I’ve been. (Hell, I’ve done it before.) I could talk about some of the lessons I’ve learned over the past year or so – to trust your first instincts as you’re usually wary about something (or someone) for a reason, that people really don’t change and that we need to see our friends and partners for who they really are instead of who we would like them to be – but I’ll just leave it at that. I could discuss my various days of drinking & debauchery over the last 365 days, but pictures are worth 1000 words so I’ll let them to the talking. I could look to the future, setting goals on where I’d like to be in days to come, citing fame, fortune (or at least an increase from my current state of destitution), and fulfilling love, but I’m as fickle as I am impetuous and I hate having to change my goals every week or so.

Instead, I’ll give you a wish list.

In years past, I went the solely material route, citing various items that I longed for as a birthday or Valentine’s Day or Christmas present, which was met with limited success. (WHY hasn’t anyone gotten me a karaoke machine yet?) I lusted and listed, putting time & effort into what would just make my life fan-friekin-tastic at that point in time. Going that route was my initial thought here, but I really couldn’t figure out what I wanted or, more importantly, I needed. Though there are a few items that I wouldn’t mind receiving for my upcoming 26th anniversary of my fantabulous birth (which, for those of you who continue to get it wrong, is June 8th), not one would make my life perfect, make my life complete, even make my life noticeably better. Face it – I’ve got a pretty good life going here, and while I’m quick to rant and rave about drivers who don’t turn off their turn signal and cats that poop in the bathtub, I’ve got it pretty good. So this year for my birthday, I want:

• A sunny afternoon with no responsibilities and a pitcher of margaritas
• An evening on a deck with friends, chatting and laughing until the wee hours of the morning
• A late night call when you talk about anything and everything and get off the phone only because your cell phone battery is dying
• An early morning call just to say good morning
• A day at the pool, having underwater tea parties and handstand contests
• A rainy Sunday where I watch DVD’s in bed all day
• An unexpected phone call or chance meeting with an old friend
• A new favorite song that is so good that I can play it over and over again and not get sick of it
• A rockin’ birthday party with friends from out of town, tiki torches that don’t burn down my house and a fantastic orchid lei
• A pair of Seven Jeans that aren’t so low on my longest-torso-ever that they’re nearly obscene (sorry, had to have at least ONE materialistic item in there)
• A long, relaxing bubble bath. En tandem
• A bold move

  They say the best things in life are free, and in this case, I have to agree.