33.

(this is how cake should always be eaten--ALWAYS)

May is, historically, my favorite month. Because my birthday is in May. In fact, it's this week. Friday, the 28th, to be exact. It's a day where I get to do whatever I want, because it is MY DAY. MINE! So this year, I am taking off work (which I do whether or not I am employed at the time, because no one should have to work on their birthday) and driving back to Camp Hill, PA to visit my family and have them take me to dinner and shower me with love and presents. I have long since given up trying to arrange parties and get-togethers for my birthday. Memorial Day weekend, while awesome in its 3-day-ness, is a terrible time to try to get friends to come over and give you things.

This year I turn 33. I am hell-bent on going to my birthday dinner with feathered hair in tribute to the fantastic year of 1977. You think I'm joking, but one of my Internet Explorer tabs is a how-to guide to getting a Farrah-do. If I succeed (and my track record with hairstyling is spotty, at best), I will post pictures. Do not hold your breath unless you're REALLY good at it.

The one thing that's missing this year, as I round third and head for 33, is an excitement for gifts. Maybe that's the wrong wording. I'm excited to see what I get, but I've been no help at all in letting my family know what I want. Because I don't really know. I am, by and large, a greedy person. I love to get things. I love surprise gifts, planned gifts, treating myself to way too many gifts. Gifts rule! Anyone who says otherwise is a dirty liar. And don't get me wrong, I love giving gifts, too. But this is about getting. Acquiring. The gimme's. I think that this year, the gimme's have left me for someone younger with a smaller ass. Bitches.

Usually, books are my go-to gift. I have a list of titles that I want to eventually own. But I looked at my two bookshelves, teetering under the weight of unread books, and thought, I don't need any more books right now.

DVD's are next in line. Yeah, there are a few titles I wouldn't mind owning, but nothing is coming out that I NEED. And there have been DVD's in the recent months that I have gone out and bought mere hours after their release. Not since Pirate Radio, though--and that was back in April.

CD's...do they still sell those?

Of course, there are big-ticket items a-plenty that I could name: a new car, a trip to Orlando to go to Disney and the new Harry Potter park, a puppy, a penthouse apartment in Battery Park, a private backyard concert featuring Lady GaGa and Def Leppard, a lifelong friendship and working partnership with Tina Fey. Unfortunately, I am unable to pinpoint any of my acquaintance that could reasonably be asked to give me these things. I'm gonna have to work on that.

Presents be damned (not literally--I still want them, I'm just philosophizing now), I'm really looking forward to Friday. I'm going to be surrounded by people who really love me, eating the best potato soup ever made, and doing whatever the sam hell I want to, hopefully with feathered hair. Because it's my BIRTHDAY!!

(If the feathered hair thing doesn't work, I will be dressing like this.)