Donger's here for five hours, and he's got somebody. I live here my whole life, and I'm like a disease.

Party people, I’m proud to say that I’m 33 today. Ahhhhh. I’m not sure what to write about the day itself, other than I’m grateful for a moment to celebrate with friends and wine, glad for a date on which to reset the timer, in love with the fact that I’m savoring my 30s rather than sitting uncomfortably in the skin of my 20s. And I’m loving looking forward.

This is the second birthday I’ve celebrated while writing on this site. I’m commemorating the day with said wine and referenced accomplices as well as an eye toward the 33 things a 33-year-old would be proud to accomplish by age 40. It’s closer than you – and surely I – can even imagine.

A few beautiful things I’d like to do in the next few years . . .

1. Own more than four bras. And buy those really kick-ass, expensive, gorgeous ones. Like Anna Nicole probably wore before she started the crack.
2. Ride a roller coaster for the first time.
3. Spend at least a week in the Greek Islands. Preferably on a private boat.
4. Get the operation I’ve been putting off for 16 years.
5. Purchase an apartment that despite its cracks and peeling paint takes my breath away.
6. Run a 5K without panting or hallucinating.
7. Visit the Egyptian pyramids in all their splendor. Fight tears while taking in said grandeur.
8. Meditate regularly.
9. Attend two home Florida State football games in the same season.
10. Learn to cook five dishes that I can make with my eyes closed. At least one must be a dessert. At least one other must involve vindaloo. All five must wow ‘em at dinner parties.

11. (Oh.) Have a dinner party for which I make everything from scratch.
12. a) Touch a koala bear. b) Hold koala bear if it doesn’t try to scratch my eyes out after 12a.
13. Find an accepting home for my spiritual beliefs.
14. Trace Jack the Ripper’s literal footsteps through London.
15. Fall in unguarded, spectacular, ridiculous, magnificent, hot, mushy love. And when I find him, kiss this man regularly as if my life depended on it.
16. Have more than half of my furniture bought after leaving graduate school.
17. Give a speech to more than 200 people. Without backing out early and/or hyperventilating.
18. Read the remainder of the canon of world literature I somehow missed.
19. Sing karaoke with wild abandon.
20. Keep a personal, hard-copy journal for one full year.

21. Own a car with bum warmers.
22. Spend a month without television. I’d like to keep it in the room and put plants and my nail polish on it, but choose not to watch it.
23. Make an international volunteer trip, likely to Central or South America.
24. Publish somewhere other than this site.
25. Make my SCUBA open-water dive on Grand Bahama Island.
26. Become an expert on one topic not related to my degrees.
27. Learn as much as I can about blues music.
28. Observe an autopsy.
29. Get my groove on. Take both salsa and ballroom dancing lessons.
30. Make amends with my parents. Even just a few weeks of Texas Hold ‘Em, shared mystery movies and unabated laughter would be worth all of this.

31. Stop my M.O. of keeping people around so I can have my Christmas card numbers up.
32. Wake up 4/5 days with a passion for what I do for a living.
33. Learn to forgive. Learn to treat people well on more days than I don’t, doing so without an intentional thought about any part of it.

Thanks for celebrating each and every day with me. Or those days that I actually post.

I raise a glass to you.