30

In journalism -30- signifies the end of the story. It's a copy editing symbol for, "you'll never get the last 20 minutes of your life back. Sorry for making you read this crap story! Hahahaha!"

But Friday it meant my bestie Missy is actually 30. Which means in addition to being suspicious and untrustworthy to anyone under 30, she'll now be called "ma'am" and is one early bird special away from an AARP membership and having her skin hang off the bone like a boiled chicken.

To prevent this awful fate, we celebrated calorically, at night. Wine. Crab cakes. Gossip. I wondered where in the hell I went wrong in life. I mean, why couldn't I have been born a boy, or gay, so that we could date each other? Is that too much to ask?! Well God, is it?!

Happy Birthday to one of my favorite girls on the planet.

* Pretend like this photo was taken earlier this week at a birthday dinner and not this summer at a sweltering Red's game. And pretend that I'm not biting her head but instead looking reasonably at the camera, like Missy.