"How lovely to be a woman and change from boys to men. To go to a fancy night club and stay out after ten. How lovely to be so grown up and free! Life's lovely when you're a woman like me."*

    In precisely one month from today I will be 30 years old. Huzzah! Here’s what I want you to do for me for my birthday: subscribe to my blog. Blog and I just celebrated our 8 month anniversary yesterday, and the best present for both of us is for you to be an official follower so that by this time in a year I can inundate you with ads for erectile dysfunction and diarrhea medication and tampons that are somehow better than whatever tampons came before.**

   Here are other things I want for my birthday, since I know it’s hard to decide what to get someone:

1.     A plane ticket to anywhere. (This only excludes countries that end in –stan. Those countries tend to be iffy and a little bit sandy for my taste. And I think they’re largely war-torn, but US Weekly is my primary news source, so I could be off on that. If there’s a good vacation spot in a country ending in –stan, please let me know.)

Um...actually Tajikistan looks kind of amazing.

And Kazakhstan does, too. I take back my stance on the -stans.

2.     A lifetime supply of tampons. I don’t want to pay money for these anymore. I think this is why women are considered the “weaker” sex: we haven’t figured out a way to get rid of periods and we spend hundreds of dollars every year contending with them. It makes little sense, as we are the sex that tends to care more about our clothing, so why does it happen that we are the ones working full time to keep blood off ourselves? Guys wouldn’t care: they’d act like it was cool that they were bleeding and it didn’t hurt at all.

3.     A camera that can compensate for my intention tremor. I don’t need a $1500 camera, but a $300 camera would be really great. And maybe you could also teach me how to use it.

4.     A Costco membership. (I have a feeling this will help subsidize the cost of those tampons.)

5.     A job writing for a sitcom. Preferably one of those successful sitcoms that will be airing for 8 more years.

6.     Pay for my health insurance or car insurance for a month. I really hate paying for those.

7.     Take the GRE for me. I took it already, but my writing scores were really weak (I know you’re probably shocked because I’m so incredibly talented at writing).

Okay, I thought this list would be much longer. Maybe I’ve become less materialistic because I’ve approached the age of undeniable wisdom and maturity.

*Quote is song lyrics from "How Lovely to Be a Woman" (Music: Charles Strouse; Lyrics: Lee Adams) from the epic musical Bye Bye Birdie (George Sidney, 1963). I think Lee was being ironic.

**I have points to make on the advertisements I talked about. Also, is it just me or did this whole idea of promoting medication on television start happening only in the last 10 years or so?

So:

 1. I don’t understand why they have to promote erectile dysfunction medication so much. If someone has erectile dysfunction, I wouldn’t think it would be one of those “scary medical issues” that someone felt compelled to hide from their doctor. It’s not like hiding your smoking habit or being embarrassed to talk about how rarely you exercise. It’s the kind of problem that sort of fixes itself because what kind of man is going to sit around waiting until his erection comes back? Plus, why do they sell “performance enhancing” pills in gas stations?  Who would end up crediting Chevron for improving the dimensions of his penis? I always think of those old SNL Celebrity Jeopardy sketches with Will Farrell and Darryl Hammond, when Darryl Hammond played Sean Connery. 

"The day is mine!" SNL Celebrity Jeopardy. (Photo)

Sean Connery: “I’ve got to ask you about the penis mightier.”

Alex Trebek: “No, no, no, no. That’s the pen is mightier.”

S.C.: “Gussy it up however you want to Trebek, what matters is does it work? Will it really mighty my penis, man?

A.T.: “It’s not a product, Mr. Connery.”

S.C.: “Because I’ve ordered products like that before. Wasted a pretty penny, I don’t mind telling you. And if the penis mightier really works, I’ll order a dozen.”

2. Diarrhea medication: chances are if you have diarrhea, you’re not sitting at home in front of the TV on a Wednesday afternoon trying to decide what to do about it. You’ve probably already surfed Web M.D. and, if you’re anything like me, you’ve told everyone you know about it and asked for their advice. And if you have the runs, odds are you're not watching TV at all, unless you have one in your bathroom (lucky).

[Which brings me to another issue about advertising: I know they think they’ve got their target demographic nailed down, but they don’t. Just because I’m home in the afternoon doesn’t mean I need to go to DeVry Institute of Technology to get my criminology degree. Nor does it mean I need to be slammed with diaper ads every 5 minutes. I’m neither unemployed nor a stay-at-home mom. I do not need a lawyer because I’m sitting on the couch in the afternoon thinking about who the fuck I can sue so I don’t have to get a real job. I just happen to have the afternoon off, you assholes.

DeVry Campus and entire staff.

3. And tampons: Emily and I had a really good idea about how to revolutionize the tampon industry. I can’t really tell you what the idea is, because too many of my ideas have been stolen because I can’t shut up about my brilliance. What I will say is that it’s criminal what women have ended up having to pay for the privilege of having a period. And when I hit menopause and look back on my life, I’ll be totally fine with the amount of money I spent on toilet paper over the years, but what I spent on my period will be (literally) money down the drain and a true misuse of precious natural resources (paper/cotton/plastic). What a sad, sick waste. (And please don't try to sell me on the moon cup. It may be the best thing out there so far, but it has a long list of problems as well. And this website makes me mad because it looks like these two women are so happy to be together talking about their g.d. periods. Who does that?!? Seriously, are women sanctioning these ad campaigns?)

Look! A woman can run even while using a tampon! What will we women conquer next? (Photo)

UPDATE: As of 11 a.m. this morning, I was granted one of my birthday wishes: my buddy Chad sent me a text offering to let me join his Costco membership. You can give free membership to one person, but that person has to have your address. Since Chad lives in my old apartment, my driver's license has his address. Hooray! See, you just have to ask for stuff and sometimes the universe throws you a fricking bone.