The Decline

Birthday's are a funny thing. I know a lot of people who don't like to celebrate getting older, but I've always been gung-ho about getting my party on, even though as I've gotten older I can't exactly hold my liquor any more. What's not to celebrate though? You're another year older, another year wiser, and another year's worth of shoes have been bought! So, now that my official plummet into my late twenties is upon us, I'd like to take this time to reflect on what I've accomplished within the past year, and what I'd like to do differently during my 27th year of life:

List o' Accomplishments:

• I grew my first wrinkle - thank you pasty pale Irish skin.
• I got fired for the first time in my adult life - best Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Years present ever!
• I managed to date only one closeted gay man - vast improvements, people.
• I got my heart broken and smooshed - awesome!
• I gained back every single pound I lost before I turned 26 - mmm flubtastic.
• I hit a guard rail and cement block with my car - scratches and dents galore!
• I developed my sweet ability to choke almost to death in my sleep - bring me my face vacuum!
• I've obtained not just one job to replace the one I lost, but three! - who needs sleep? I keep trying to kill myself anyway while I'm sleeping.
• I moved, not once, but twice - because the first time wasn't quite fun enough
• I got my first speeding ticket ever, on top of my second HOV violation - I really just felt like donating money to Fairfax County because they aren't quite rich enough.

I've accomplished a good amount since my last birthday, but in an effort to keep the momentum going, I would like to set some new goals for this next year coming up.

List o' Goals:

• Start tanning - because if I'm going to develop wrinkles, I might as well look like a leather hand bag while I'm at it
• Keep a hair color for more than a month - this might be really difficult for me
• Lose some weight... again - you know, as much as I enjoy the flub, I enjoyed being less squishy more
• Stop trying to kill myself in the middle of the night - fingers crossed!
• Date more non gay men - I like men who like vagina the best
• Stop donating money to the richest county in America - I prefer my money where I can see it, you know, in my closet
• Stop playing bumper cars in real life - let's keep my ride alive!
• Maintain my sanity while working 7 days a week - wait... you don't hear those voices?
• Escape the shanty townhouse - my soul has died because of this house
• Become a world renowned writer - it could happen!

Unfortunately, there are certain things that are completely beyond my control from year to year. I can not control that it's always about 115 degrees out when it's time to celebrate my birth, which causes me to develop a delicious Mufasa mane. I can not control that toothless men at gas stations love to point and stare at my ass. I can not control that I sweat more than the imaginary lovechild of Whitney Houston and Richard Simmons would. Last, but not least, I can not control that people still continue to buy Jennifer Lopez's music. Why does she still make music? I can't figure it out.

Before I Self Destruct...

I've recently discovered that my body is literally trying to implode; and while some of you might think that this is an exaggeration, I can truly assure you that it's not. Within a two week span of me staying at friend's and family's houses, it was confirmed twice that I periodically try to suffocate myself in my sleep. The suspect: possible sleep apnea, which is causing me to choke and not breathe during my slumber. So, in essence my body keeps trying to kill itself.

In an effort to stay alive, I reached out to the doctor to make an appointment. Unfortunately, it would be a good three weeks before I was able to be seen. To mind my time until the doctor was able to save my life, I headed to the wonderful world of Wikipedia - land of all useful knowledge. Of course the one and only fact I was able to focus on was that sleep apnea will inevitably cause my untimely death, but I did learn a good amount of information (whether that information was actually factual doesn't really matter). Apparently, the longer I suffer from sleep apnea without treatment, the less oxygen reaches my brain and that lack of brain oxygen will cause an array of fun health issues, including (but not limited to!) heart disease, stroke, clinical depression and obesity.

Not only was it bad enough that I could wake the dead from my obnoxious snoring, I was now suffocating myself in my sleep, preventing oxygen from reaching my brain, making myself fatter, and counting down the days to my first stroke. With my excitement in tow, I finally headed to the doctor to see what could possibly be done. She took a look down my throat and said "Wow, it's crowded back there." Crowded? With what? Subway cars are crowded; my house of too many roommates is crowded; I'm pretty confident my throat shouldn't be crowded. She wrote me a referral to the sleep medicine guru and sent me on my merry way to sleep another night closer to a heart attack.


Luckily, the sleep medicine facility was able to get me in two days later. She started asking me question after question to gauge how likely it was that I had sleep apnea.

• Do you snore? Yes!
• Do you have headaches? Yes!
• Do you have heart burn? Yes!
• Do you have night sweats? Yes! They don't call me Sweatz^TM for nothin'.

I then had to rate my level of sleepiness in different situations on a scale from 0 to 3 - 3 being the most likely I'd fall asleep.

• Sitting and Reading? 3
• Watching TV? 3
• Sitting inactive in a public place (like a meeting at work)? Definitely 3
• Passenger in a car for an hour without a break? 3
• In a car, while stopped in traffic? 3

She told me that I had a very high level of sleepiness, that I am an accident waiting to happen, and that I shouldn't drive until this is under control. Sure - that's a feasible option. Luckily I live and work within a 5 mile radius, so the chance of my flying off the road and killing pedestrians isn't as high anymore. I should probably start driving with a helmet on though, just in case. She scheduled a sleep study for me, so we can figure out just how severe my sleep apnea is. She then went on to tell me that while sleep apnea does clearly suck it is very treatable with a CPAP machine aka The Oxygen Mask of No Sex.


I'm pretty confident that I can just give up the hope of ever having sex again, let alone a boyfriend or future husband. Do they have vaginal amputation surgery? Can I donate it to someone who can have sex? I clearly won't need her anymore. Would that donation be a tax write off? That'd be helpful. Perhaps with all the restful, brain oxygenating sleep and lack of sex, I will become incredibly focused on going back to school, getting a fourth job, or trying to ward off the impending major obesity that the sleep apnea was trying to bring upon me. So I may be vaginally useless, but I'll be smarter, hotter and my brain will once again be filled with sweet, sweet oxygen.