I joined the Y a few weeks ago and have started to go semi-regularly. My legs are sore as hell but I’ve been feeling pretty good and sleeping like a baby, so that’s nice. We have two YMCA locations in town – the older one is downtown and then there’s a newer one across town in a fancy new trendy development. They’re equidistant from my house but I prefer the older Y downtown. I guess that’s kind of weird because the last time I went to a gym regularly was when I was in college, and I got spoiled to death with the super-fancy facilities there. It makes me kind of picky about gyms, but the fancy new Y and its members intimidate me. I find the downtown location a little friendlier. I could go to the fitness center on campus for free, but the hours are inconvenient, there are not many machines and they’re often broken, and most of all, I don’t want to work out with my coworkers.

So I’ve been going to the Y, but one thing I will not do there is shower. It’s not so much that I don’t want other people seeing my naked body. It’s more that I prefer my own shower at home, with my own soap and shampoo and washcloths and towels, and I just find showering in public to be kind of an uncomfortable experience. I’d much rather just wear my workout clothes home and shower once I get there, and that is what I usually do.

Of course, not everyone has the hangups I have. In fact, some elderly women seem to have no hangups at all, as evidenced by the way they totally trot around the locker room bare-assed naked for several minutes at a time.

This still doesn’t bother me all that much. Women’s bodies are different and everyone is beautiful and, honestly, the nudity is not the issue.

Nudity six inches from my head is a bit of an issue.

I was sitting on a bench lacing up my sneakers the other day when an old lady came from the shower into my little locker nook to change back into her regular clothes. I was at the very end of my bench, as far away from her as I could possibly be, and yet she decided that she needed to change her clothes six inches from my head. Specifically, she bent over to pull up her underwear at the same moment I accidentally looked up, and holy crap. I think the last time I was that close to a woman’s crotch was 27 years ago when I was emerging from one.

And it’s not like I can say anything. What would I say? “Excuse me, but your naked ass is uncomfortably close to my head, could you scooch down just a bit?” I didn’t say anything. Instead I very carefully tried to look back down without bonking my head on her ass, and finished tying my shoes, and slid sideways and out.

I think I’d rather not have that experience again.

I’ll be 27 on Sunday. I don’t really feel anything interesting about that. It’s just something that will happen on Sunday. I’ll wake up in the morning, and I’ll eat some food, and I’ll probably play with the cats, and I might drive my car, and I might read or watch TV or clean the house, and I’ll turn 27.

We used to tease Jamie a lot because, for years, she’d start making plans for her birthday in, say, March. Her birthday is in November. But all year long she’d talk about what we’d do for her birthday, and what she’d like to get for her birthday, and what kind of cake she’d prefer for her birthday, and we’d be like OMG JAMIE THAT MOVIE WILL BE ON HBO BY THE TIME YOUR BIRTHDAY GETS HERE. But, you know, I bet I used to be like that too. That was the most important day of the year, after all. It was MY DAY, when everyone had to be nice to me or I would be completely within my rights as Birthday Girl to throw a fit and kick their asses.

I remember getting ready for my 7th birthday party and running into a sometimes-friend, Amanda Blatcher, when my mom and I were leaving the house to go to the store. Amanda asked why I was all dressed up and I explained that it was MY BIRTHDAY and asked her if she wanted to come to the party later. She said she would, and I told her that she still had time to get me a present beforehand, but she’d probably better hurry.

Eesh. I was really such a dick.

I had a couple of really awesome birthdays. When I was younger, we always had great parties, and often went ice-skating or something along those lines. My 21st was loads of fun, and that celebration lasted for about three days and included such gems as a dirty schoolgirl costume, Burger King chicken tenders in a dorm hallway at 3 in the morning, and the South Park movie. My 25th birthday was pretty good too. My 20th and 18th birthdays sucked ass.

I think I got a can of pineapple for my birthday one year when I was a kid. Mom told me that I had specifically requested it. There’s also an awesome birthday picture of me opening my Yoda Play-Doh playset.

This year’s going to be quiet. I think I’m going to Roanoke to have dinner with my parents, and then on Monday I’ll have margaritas with some work friends.

When my mom was my age, she was married with two kids. Almost all of my friends are older than I am, and many of them have married and bought houses and had kids and such by 27. I look at them and think maybe I’m behind. Maybe there’s something I’m not doing. Even though I’m not interested in getting married right now, and I don’t know if I’ll ever have kids, and it doesn’t make much sense to buy a house when I’m still getting my finances in order and I’m not sure where I want to put down roots anyway. I have some cool things happening in my career. I have family nearby who loves me. I can afford to live comfortably by myself. I have a relatively new car that runs well. I have two great cats. I’ve made some great friends lately. If any of these things are what you’d use to measure success, then I think I’m doing just fine. Things are going well. I’m not ecstatic, but I’m pretty content and I feel relatively stable. These things are all good.

But sometimes I still wonder if I’m forgetting something. There’s a huge gaping restlessness sometimes, where I get a little stressed for no apparent reason and I find myself dissatisfied with everything around me. I feel like I should be going back to school or moving across the country or changing careers or buying new socks or something. Maybe it’s that I’m still getting used to this whole stable, responsible adult thing and I don’t know what to do with it.

Whatever. I’ll be 27, and something tells me it’s going to feel a lot like 26.

This month I’m trying to learn two skills: text messaging and ironing. It’s a funny combination, these two. One is something everyone younger than I am seems to know how to do intuitively; the other is something everyone older than I am seems to know. Both are things I never really gave a crap about until recently. And yet, here I find myself hunched over a cell phone pecking out words, face screwed up in concentration. And I find myself in the kitchen, cursing as I iron yet another wrinkle into formerly smooth work slacks. I’m getting better at texting. I continue to suck at ironing. Maybe this will be okay, because I could always get a helper monkey to do the ironing, but I don’t think I’d trust it to send my text messages accurately.

I will keep practicing until one of two things happens: I become the world champion at either skill, or I get bored and take on a new project. Feel free to place bets on which will occur first.