Sometimes 25 things is a little. Like 25 feathers. 25 strands of hair. 25 kernels of corn. 25 pieces of dirt. What can you build with 25 pieces of dirt?

And sometimes 25 things just feel weird. Like wearing 25 pairs of long johns at once. Dating 25 guys at the same time. Blowing your nose with 25 tissues in your hand. 25 years of living and breathing and being.

Yep, today I turned 25 years old – celebrating a quarter century of redheaded Erica-ness swirled down the drain. And it feels weird, watching the last bits of number 24 slip down the drain with number 25 taking its place. It’s weird that 25 should be any different than 24, but it is. All my high school classmates are getting married and having kids, advancing their careers and buying homes. It’s weird that, as kids in high school and just out of college, we set goals and milestones. Why do we do that? Life is going to step in and have its way with those milestones and goals, to heck with all your carefully laid plans. It’s weird, 25 is just weird.

It doesn’t help that I think birthdays are kinda dumb. They set you up for failure. No matter how old we get, it’s ingrained in us – at least at some very small level – that something special is supposed to happen on this day. But every year older we get, the more likely something special is not going to happen. Indeed, the likelihood of something unspecial happening hikes its pants up to Steve Urkel heights.

Without even trying, we set ourselves up for disappointment at the very best and hurt, pain and sadness at the worst. It’s why I don’t like expectations. Far too often, they end in a puddle of crap on the floor.

*I should maybe take this moment to say I’m not a very big birthday person. Maybe I was born that way, although I suspect there’s a very healthy dose of upbringing thrown into this particular equation.*

In the absence of having anything else to say, I’ll leave you with my favorite birthday quote of the quarter century:

But you don’t want the movie either, because when you bought it, you purchased it with some vague, shadowy person to be gifted in mind instead of yourself. So right, after I got past that, I walked back through the movies to find one or eight for myself because I need entertainment in the evenings. And, dude, like, totally not that type of entertainment. Just some good old Swiss Family Robinson and Little House on the Prairie home-style fun.

And then I’m just standing there in the middle of the aisle, because I see other people that stand in the middle of aisles all the time. So I think maybe there’s something to being in everyone else’s way and that maybe I ought to give it a try. Right when I’m in the middle of being in everyone else’s way, some lady’s voice comes over the intercom and flatly says, “Cancel Christmas.”

That’s it. Just…”Cancel Christmas” like she was canceling an extra order of underwear because she found the package she bought three years ago that got shoved to the back of the drawer. Seriously. I mean, who did she think she was anyway? It’s not like she killed the dream of Santa Claus. Canceling Christmas is so much bigger than that. It’s killing the dream of Santy, all the reindeer and the elves. And the Abominable Snowman. And the entire North Pole melting in three hours, and who can handle the shock of that? The entire slate of our world’s “leaders” can’t figure out how to handle the polar caps melting at the rate of what, like, eight chunks of ice per 9.2347 days? It would take a lot more than two weeks of meetings in a place that makes me think of round tins and spittoons if the North Pole melted in three hours.

But you know what the real blow was? I always thought Scrooge was a man. My whole life, I thought the ultimate canceler of Christmas was like, you know, a man with all the man parts and a man voice and a pair of man shoes.

Honorable Mentionables: Eat an entire package of oreos in one day. Dress completely in the same color for all articles of clothing once a month. Play shuffleboard. Buy all the toilet paper in a store and then watch everyone’s reaction when they find that section empty. Learn to speak dog. Lengthen my wingspan by two inches. Meet a sumo wrestler. Make a cardboard cut-out of John Wayne and take him clubbin’ at Applebee’s.

10. Spend my doll-hairs wisely. It’s funny to me that people think the recession is over. Like it’s a bad toothache and the Novocain made all the pain disappear. Even if it is over, inflation will be hot on its heels. I’m good with my doll-hairs, but I think sometimes I can get a little lax with where I’m putting my spending power. That’s kind of a grown-up thing to say. It’s a stodgy, curtain-print old-lady dress type of grown-up thing to say, but this year, I want to make sure I’m not being a floozy with my pennies.

9. Visit seven places I’ve never been. I like to see new places and experience new things. Something about stepping into a different vehicle or a different town or a different mountain satisfies the wanderlust in me. It forces me to adapt, to think on my feet. It allows me to drink in all the new sounds and sights, broadening my view just a few inches more. I don’t know where I’ll go, who I’ll meet or what I’ll see. Maybe it’ll be something like Alaska or maybe if I think really big, it’ll be Ireland or Australia. But it could be something commonly ordinary like shopping at a different grocery store, stepping into that corner pub or hiking a new trail. This year, I want to see something new, hear something new, feel something new.

8. Be a good dog mom. You know, I call Doc my kid a lot on here, and he is. But I’m not fanatical about him. He doesn’t wear sweaters or eat out of a porcelain dish or sleep on the bed – crikes, he doesn’t even sleep in the house! I like my dog, but he’s just a dog. He’s not a human kid or a gunnysack of gold or a year’s supply of homemade soap, just a dog. But even though he’s just a dog, I want him to be a happy dog. A dog who gets a lot of exercise both physically and mentally. A dog who is well trained, respects me and loves me. Dogs like that don’t just happen; they take work. This year, I want to be dedicated enough to my kid to be a good dog mom and help him become the dog I know he can be.

7. Chill. The. Heck. Out. My head gets crazy full what with all the thoughts mashed around the brain tissue and…the cerebrum. And sometimes I think too much, worry too much, feel too much…dude, I know. Totally annoying. And useless! All that brain power churning through cell after cell only to conclude that yes, I should indeed put the mixing bowls on the second shelf instead of the first. This year, I want to remember that this is life, chill the heck out and enjoy it.

6. Tick off the second anniversary at the ole jobsky. Partly because a steady paycheck makes paying bills a lot easier. Partly because I don’t know what I would do with myself if I didn’t have a job other than potentially pursue my childhood desire of becoming a cheese-maker. But mostly I’d like to mark off that date to prove to myself that I can stay in one place for more than a year and be okay.

5. Write. More. Lots more. I’m not sure I’m really all that gifted in writing or putting together words in a way that makes others want to read them. I’m not sure I’m really all that great at coming up with stories and funny quotes and breath-catching poems. But when I write, I feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing. And when I write something that I like, well, it makes me happy. Not the bubbly-three screams-extra cheese-double coupon type of happy, but…restful happy. Peaceful happy. The type of happy I think we all hope to find and hang on to. So this year, I want to write. More. Lots more.

4. Learn something new, step outside my comfort zone. I’m quick to dismiss something simply because I don’t know how to do it or how to handle it. Mostly that’s the result of my apathy towards stepping outside my comfort zone. A comfort zone is like going bowling with the gutter bumpers in place – you can’t fail. But when I’m learning something new, I feel stretched. I feel on the edge, because I’m headed into uncharted territory. It’s a mini Lewis and Clark expedition, and this year, I want to put on my coonskin cap and take a lot of mini expeditions into the wild frontier known as Things I Don’t Know But Am Willing To Try (TIDKBAWTT).

3. Less material more meaning. When I was a girl, mom tried to teach me to sew. Even back then I knew the less material, the less complicated it was going to be and I think the same thing goes for my life. Materialistic things – they are nice and I’m not against them. I certainly like my coffee pot and my computer. I’d enjoy the heck out of a new flat screen television, a pair of diamond earrings or something like, say, a truck. But these things, they are merely things and when I think about what makes me giddily happy inside, none of them can be bought with a dollar. Or a fist full of dollars. This year, I want to fill my hours with more meaning and less material.

2. Stop, drop and roll around in the flowers. I get a little crazy sometimes, a little nuts-o in the head. Sometimes, a lot of the time, I get so focused on the destination that I miss out on the journey. Like long road trips – it’s pedal to the floor and eyes on the horizon with stops allowed only for gas. If you’re going to ride with me, you better learn to either hold it, expand your bladder or get really good really quickly at peeing in a bottle. Roadtrips are supposed to be about seeing what’s out there. Is there really anything so terribly urgent that I can’t take 30 minutes to see something really cool? And I do that with more than just roadtrips. I do it with life too. So this year, I want to remember to take the time to stop, drop and roll around in the flowers and enjoy the journey.