people say she’s crazy…

A few nights ago, while lying awake in bed, I started coming up with a half-serious Quarter-of-a-Century retrospective blog post. Obviously it can’t be wholly serious, because I’m pretty sure you’d all fall asleep somewhere around age three, and I’d be making most of that up, anyway. I even came up with a great title for the post and some things I wanted to say about myself and how I’m feeling here with the so-called Quarter-Life Crisis and all, but alas and unsurprisingly, it has all escaped me. Must be old age. Anyway, here it is, my QLC ode to growing up, to 2007, to the universe.

You know what? Let’s talk about me growing up first.

Ways In Which I Feel Old, Which Is A Bad Thing

• I can’t keep up with Twitter. I’m sorry, I just can’t.
• When I walk down the hall to the ladies’ room at work after sitting for a while at my desk, my right hip pops every time I pass marketing.
• I got something in the mail about SOCIAL SECURITY.
• I have two cats (this, I realize, is old news, but now it’s starting to sound like OLD news, if you know what I mean. My coworker even gave me a cat toy, how crazy must I seem?).
• Everyone on America’s Next Top Model is younger than me. When participants are my age or older, they are called out for looking old in their photos. What?
• My gray hairs are breeding. I swear.
• I am almost to the point where I ask people in quiet public spaces to chew their gum, or their burrito, or their cud or whatever, quietly. If you are a loved one of mine, I have always asked you to do this. But now, I find myself sitting in waiting rooms and silent subway platforms wondering if asking someone to STOP SMACKING makes me a crazy old lady. I think it does.

Ways In Which I Feel I Am Growing Up, Which Is A Good Thing

• I get Christmas cards, often from adult-type people who have spouses and babies. I love being at a point in my life where I know people with babies and people who are with it enough to send Christmas cards.
• I think I stopped taking shit from people. I know this can’t be 100% true, that somewhere, somehow, I will always believe certain bits of bullshit both knowingly and unknowingly. But the amount of BS I am willing and able to stomach in the interest of keeping the peace, preserving others’ sanity, or avoiding the inevitable has decreased significantly in recent months, and I am the better for it. I don’t pretend to be interested. I fake almost nothing. You should try it, it’s pretty refreshing, and I hope marks an up-tick in self-esteem after what seem to have been some questionable years.
• I wear big girl shoes. I know, I’ve been trying for a decade now, and I think I’ve said this before, but now I’m pretty sure I’ve really got the hang of it. If a girl can learn to wear a dress well, she can learn to make it through a night in heels, right?
• I have politics-related thoughts that go deeper than the statement, “the person who runs this country is an idiot.” It took a while, but I got there.
• Sometimes before I buy things, I ask myself if a) I have the immediate cash to afford it, and b) if I actually actually want it. Behold! A grown-up!*

Now let’s talk about 2007, what do you say? Good? Yes?

It’s amazing to me that a year ago, on my birthday, I was sitting at Piece with the Chicago crowd, and Austin was hitting on Carrie and it was pouring, just pouring, and we went and got ice cream after pizza, for no good reason and I was a little on the porky side and knitting my fingers to the bone and scheming. A few days after my birthday, I flew to New York and it wasn’t even cold outside, and we ate at Penelope’s and went out for Sloan’s birthday at Second on Second and I hated leaving. I hated leaving again in March when I was back for Winston’s show. I really hated leaving in May when I was here with my family and just wanted to stay and play with them and with Morgan. But I didn’t so much hate leaving in June, since I had a job in the bag and I had a ton of stuff to take care of in a short amount of time, and then I was back, for real, in July.

It’s still strange for me to talk about “last” summer as one of barbeques in Chicago and I’m From Barcelona at the pool party in Brooklyn; of my going away party at Guthrie’s and McSorley’s with Buh-weet and Pratt; of John Mayer with Em on a freezing lake shore day and of Farm Aid on Randall’s Island. I was in a million places (and often in a million pieces, to boot) and it feels like I was in all of those places at once.

I was going to write some more about things that were great about 2007, but maybe I will let you discover them on your own, except to say: lolcats, Juno, 30Rock, Fat Bastard Shiraz, Banana Republic jeans, Reuben’s Empanadas, God is Not Great, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Ant Farm, Hanky Pankies, retail therapy, lobster, long hair, parents, roommates, friends, friends’ roommates, angels, oranges, burritos, wedding cakes and guidebooks.

And now it’s time to talk about the universe! I’ll keep it simple.

Okay: The Universe is Awesome. Pretty sure that’s all there is to say about that, right? It’s awesome, and it’s good to us, biologically and karmic-ly, and I think we should continue to be in awe of it. It’s the great unknown! Unfathomable! Awesome!

Anyway, welcome to a new year, everyone. Welcome to a new quarter-century, me. Welcome to more of the same, universe.

*Does not apply to drunk pizza, crumbs cupcakes, threadless tees.