Translation:  OH MY GOD! IT’S MY BIRTHDAY!

And thank you everyone for all the awesome birthday wishes today.  Even if you didn’t know it was my berfder, thank you anyway for feeling sort of awful for not knowing.  I love you for it.

I am….thirty three years old today.  Which would normally make me sad, but I actually like the number 33.  Thirty-two was sort of an odd number and thirty-four just passes that hump of ever being able to feel young again, so 33 is good.  I like 33.  And, of course, it closes out what has been the best, most fabulous year of my life.  To celebrate, I would like to talk about the 33 highlights of the last year.  In no particular order except least favorite to most favorite, here you have it:

33: ERMAGHERD!  I discovered my new favorite word.

32: People.  I’ve hated people most of my life, but I realized this year that it’s because I sort of didn’t like my life.  Now that I love my life, I sort of love people.  If you are a people, then that means I sort of love you.  If you aren’t a people…well, then…you must be a something creepy so I don’t feel bad for not sort of loving you.

31: I love to travel.  Before I turned 32, I think I visited Oklahoma once. And Wyoming, just to see if it really existed.  It does, but barely.  But this year I’ve had the privilege of going to Chicago, Oklahoma, Colorado, New York, Minneapolis, Connecticut, Louisiana, New York again, Progresso, Cozumel, (Did I go to Wyoming again?), and…next year is looking even better.  Vegas, anyone? Yep. Boston?  Yep.  RT in Missouri?  Yep.

30: I went on a submarine.  That was cool.

29: I bought a house.  That was WAY cool.

28: I got a new car. That was way cool until it got hit.

27: I wrote four books.  FOUR.  Yep.  Two of them are unpublished and I’m still editing them, but they are written.  Or wrote.  Wroten? Wrought?  No. And just so you know, I can’t wait for HOPELESS!

26: I have a real writing cave.  Check it out here if you want to see it.  It’s a pretty boring video, which is why I’m not forcing you to do it.  Merely suggesting.

25: This video by Pink.  It’s the hottest video on the planet.

24: I saw The Avett Brothers in Chicago.  Second best concert EVER.  The first is going to be down there in my top five somewhere.  Patience.

23: Sold my movie rights to a kickass producer.  Let’s just hope he doesn’t turn Will into a transformer.  Or he can, as long as he still has abs.

22: Sold my movie rights to a kickass producer.  Yeah, yeah.  I know that was number 23, too.  But it deserves two spots on the top 33, since it was for both books.

21: Sold my movie rights to a…just kidding.  I’m going to give this #21 to the fact that I played my first hand of blackjack at a casino this year.  It was fun, but I lost.  Thanks for the awesomeness that was that night, Cheri!

20: I went to my first Slam Poetry session in Dallas back in February with my girls, Crystal and Jamie.  It was a blast.

19: I realized that my cousin is not really a drunken whore and she’s actually pretty cool.  I just can’t wait until the rest of the world realizes this, too.  And it’s sad because she’ll never read this, since she doesn’t subscribe to my blog.

7-18: Readers.  You get all these spots, because you deserve it.

6: Hazel.  I hate that little mean pig.  But I love her more than I hate her.

5: My sis is moving to Texas, because she finally realizes that Wyoming doesn’t really exist.  And this would have made it to number one, but it hasn’t quite happened yet so she’s stuck at #5 until it does.

4: Avett concert at Red Rocks.  AMAZING!  INCREDIBLE!

3: Getting third best YA book of the year in the Goodreads Choice Awards.  Sometimes I still punch myself in the face, just to make sure this is all real.  I need to find a less painful way to validate the realness of my life, though.  Face punches suck.

2: My entire family, even the ones that probably aren’t my family due to divorce and such, but who still come around and infiltrate themselves into our lives because we wouldn’t have it any other way and because, frankly, they’re weirdly addictive.

1: My friends.  My damn friends.  Okay.

And there you have it.  <3