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30 for 30: January

Ladies and gentlemen, I am now 30. A grown up, technically speaking.

I have already completed four things from my list of 30 things to do in my 30th year! Here they are:
2. Steampunk Party!

patrick and myself in steampunk garb
Steampunk’d!

4. Host a masquerade party

Julie and Elliot wearing masquerade garb
Masqueray’d

 

25. go to a farm or petting zoo (with goats and llamas or alpacas)

A goat trying to eat my tote bag at the petting zoo
Ermahgerd!

 

And on my birthday, Patrick and I went to…
6. Disneyland!

Patrick and I at Disneyland
DISNEYLAND!

 

So that leaves just 26 items left. Here is what remains:

1. Swim with a Beluga (or some kind of up close and personal experience)
3. Get a scooter
5. Learn how to sail
7. Do laughing yoga
8. Learn how to drive manual
9. Indoor skydiving
10. Visit http://www.skyzonesports.com/ (caution: this site has auto play sound)
11. Have a Thanksgiving feast (not on Thanksgiving)
12. Kayak in Hawaii
13. Dim Sum Party!
14. Travel overseas (Hong Kong? Europe? Bali?)
15. Make and eat a pizza (being really ambitious here)
16. Get a goldfish!
17. Host a private screening of a movie in a theater (http://www.dickclarkproductionstheater.com/)
18. Screen an old movie (with a projector preferrably) and wear clothes from that era
19. Ride a train to a destination outside of L.A.
20. Visit a museum
21. Go on The Price is Right (kind of dreading this, actually)
22. Make a movie
23. Have a big Chinese family dinner gathering at parents’ house
24. Do a factory tour (of anything: donuts, tortillas, furniture, cars)
26. Celebrate at a barcade (Dave and Buster’s or other arcade/drinking/dining environment)
27. Learn CSS
28. Visit New Orleans
29. New tattoo in a new city
30. Go to Graceland

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Turning 30 (aw, sh…)

I will be 30 next month. I am trying not to think about it.

Well, I’m trying not to think of it in the “Shit, I am going to be 30… why, god?! WHY?!” kind of way and instead the “How can I turn this into a reason to do ridiculous things that, under other circumstances, I would probably not do this year?” kind of way. After all, 30 is the new 20 (by the way, this statement does not sell me on 30).

At some point in my 20s I realized my 30th birthday would be on 01-30-13. Exciting, right?! So I wanted to do something special because this is never going to happen again. “I will have 30 days from the beginning of the year until the 30th birthday to do 30 things to celebrate the occasion!” I started making a list, I started mentally budgeting and decided that I should probably put away about $10k for all the things I want to do (one of the celebrations included renting a venue for a masquerade party).

On my current budget, I can afford a masquerade party at a public library. Seriously, I thought this would work.

Anyway, it’s the month before my birthday. I didn’t save up money. I didn’t book my trip to swim with beluga whales at either the Georgia Aquarim or Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. I don’t even know what I am doing on my actual birthday.

I kind of came to the conclusion that I failed at this “project” until Patrick suggested that I accomplish my task list throughout the year. Oh, right… brilliant! So I’m going to go ahead and share my list of things to accomplish next year. Hopefully, sharing this list will make me feel committed to this project and will carry it out throughout the year. This strategy worked well last year.

Problem is, I don’t think I even have 30 good “celebrations” yet.

1. Swim with a Beluga (or some kind of up close and personal experience)
2. Steampunk Party!
3. Get a scooter
4. Host a masquerade party
5. Learn how to sail
6. Disneyland!
7. Do laughing yoga
8. Learn how to drive manual
9. Indoor skydiving
10. Visit http://www.skyzonesports.com/ (caution: this site has auto play sound)
11. Have a Thanksgiving feast (not on Thanksgiving)
12. Kayak in Hawaii
13. Dim Sum Party!
14. Travel overseas (Hong Kong? Europe? Bali?)
15. Make and eat a pizza (being really ambitious here)
16. Get a goldfish!
17. Host a private screening of a movie in a theater (http://www.dickclarkproductionstheater.com/)
18. Screen an old movie (with a projector preferrably) and wear clothes from that era
19. Ride a train to a destination outside of L.A.
20. Visit a museum
21. Go on The Price is Right (kind of dreading this, actually)
22. Make a movie
23. Have a big Chinese family dinner gathering at parents’ house
24. Do a factory tour (of anything: donuts, tortillas, furniture, cars)
25. go to a farm or petting zoo (with goats and llamas or alpacas)
26. Celebrate at a barcade (Dave and Buster’s or other arcade/drinking/dining environment)
27. Learn CSS
28. Visit New Orleans
29. New tattoo in a new city
30. Go to Graceland

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Level 27

I am now the ripe old age of 27. I bought a new faux leather jacket this weekend. I’m going to apply for my own passport soon. I feel like an adult now.

So I set up a dinner and drinks event for my birthday this year. Pictures can be found here. Ashima ended up booking a flight the morning of my birthday and flew down from SF for the weekend. We had a slumber party with Jamie that night after the bar and dinner hijinks. Had a girls day out on Sunday which included brunch, shopping, cupcakes and dinner.

In other news,  my friend Darren twittered the other day that he was looking into pet relocation services since he is thinking about moving to London and needs to get his Pancake over there. I eagerly volunteered myself for that service. I hope I actually get to go to England this year. I’ve never been to Europe and this seems like the perfect opportunity. I’m finally in a place where I actually might be able to afford it and would have someone to hang out with. So yeah. I’m quite excited about the possibility though nothing is for sure yet. I looked into passport services since I’m pretty sure mine is now expired. I’ve never applied for my own passport before.

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Happy Birthday To Me

So last night was interesting to say the least. My four friends and I went to a Mexican restaurant and took some girl’s table…they asked for an “Erica, party of 4” we didn’t have an Erica but we had a party of four.

So after dinner we went to pick up Ryan from work but we got there early so we decided to walk over to the Fillmore to buy tickets for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. While we were there this guy came up to us and offered us four free tickets to see the show that was going on tonight for Leftover Salmon (has anyone heard of them?) so we took em. And we started hustling them. The first ticket we just gave away because we didn’t even think about selling them. Then the next three we made $45 off of…which had a face value of $75…but whatever.

We picked up Ryan, took him to his house and then went over to this party where the guy:girl ratio was 4:1…which was nice but the girls were hos, and it wasn’t our scene so we left after about 30-45 minutes. I drove Nina and I to our bus stop…but it was already 12:45 and the last bus had gotten there at 12:21…even though she insisted that one would be coming along shortly. HA!

We sat there in the cold till 1:30. When our cab finally came and that was the night of my birthday.