In the early summer of 1994, when I was just fourteen, my friend Caroline gave me a mix tape to listen to one night. Actually, side A was a mix, but side B was an album she'd recorded from someone else, just something to fill in the blank space. I took that tape into my tiny boarding school dormitory, fed it into my walkman, and listened to it through my headphones in the dark. I don't even remember what was on side A now, but side B mesmerized me like a magic trick.

I got some weird looks this morning as I walked from my desk to the office kitchen. And then I got a few more when I walked from my desk to the office bathroom.

Awesome, I thought. I have a poppy seed from that bagel stuck in my teeth. Either that or my dress is tucked into my tights at the back again. I was even wearing the same dress.

Before I shut up about it once and for all, I would like to tell you a little bit about my birthday. First of all, if you can swing it, I highly recommend taking the day off work for your birthday, particularly if your birthday is on a Monday. This way you can stay in bed until 11am, reading your new library book (Lorrie Moore's A Gate at the Stairs, very enjoyable so far), periodically cackling to yourself with self-important glee because NO MORNING MEETING FOR YOU HAHAHA.

On Monday, I went to the gym for the first time in.....well, I don't think I'm ready to reveal that yet. It's too embarrassing. But it was in a month beginning with "A." No, not April! I'm not that lazy. Oh alright, it was August. Yes, friends, before Monday, I hadn't been to the gym---which, I should point out, is LOCATED IN THE LOBBY OF MY OFFICE BUILDING, NOT LIKE I NEVER SEE IT OR ANYTHING---since August. Though in my defence, it was the very end of August. Like, maybe a week or so before the wedding. Maybe August 28th.

I turn thirty a week from today and I am not afraid to tell you that I have been sucker-punched by that old cliche, big time. You know the cliche I'm talking about: the one where you dread turning thirty. Every prime-time sitcom in the history of the world has made rampant use of this cliche at one time or another, and apparently I have watched enough prime-time sitcoms that I've fallen for it, hook, line, and sinker. I have been dreading my thirtieth birthday since the day after my twenty-ninth. I mean, that's what you're supposed to do, right?

I'm not sure why I was thinking about this, except to say that I think about all manner of weird things when I'm trying to get to sleep at night---like how I'd decorate other people's houses if I lived in them (probably with more red)---but the other day I found myself thinking about the three things I always need to have in my refrigerator.

I should probably tell you right now that this story is going to be a little bit gross. If you have eyes, and I assume you do, the odds are fairly high that you are going to squinch them shut quite suddenly while reading it, not unlike a man who flinches and subconsciously reaches protectively for his testicles whenever he stumbles across the word "castration." This story has to do with eyes you see, my eyes in particular, and people have sort of a thing about eyes.

Oh man, really? I have to spell it out for you?

Internet, not since I made the mistake of starting my first day of boarding school by hanging a life-sized poster of Chesney Hawkes above the bed in my dormitory---therefore cementing my reputation as "the girl who hung a life-sized poster of Chesney Hawkes above her bed on the first day" for the next seven years of my life, all the way from age 11 to age 18---have I faced so much open ridicule over a professed love interest. 

I think we can all admit to a slightly embarrasing celebrity crush, can't we? Mine, for example, is Justin Bobby. Are you familiar with Justin Bobby? He's the resident "bad boy" on The Hills, and I put "bad boy" in quotes like that because pah! He rides a motorcycle! He often has a bit of stubble! Sometimes he forgets to show up at parties! He's not strangling kittens or handing out roofies, is what I'm saying: he basically just wears a leather jacket and chews gum. He's the best kind of bad boy: the fairly harmless kind who favors plaid.

I would like to begin this post by announcing something that has just occured to me: by the end of today, I will have eaten cheese for all three meals. I had cream cheese on my bagel this morning, and a hefty selection of leftover Christmas Eve cheese and crackers for lunch.