Today is my 29th birthday. It started with one balloon, two breakfasts from Panera, three cards from coworkers, and plenty of hugs and singing and laughter. Then someone gave me a knowing look and asked, "So . . . 29, huh? How are you handling that?"

In the moment, I smiled confidently and told her I felt fine, but I've been secretly dreading that question for weeks. I'm supposed to feel like I'm on the edge of a precipice, clinging to the remnants of my youth and beauty and hope as I peer down into the valley of the shadow of death and/or my thirties. But the only things I know for certain I will miss about being a twenty-something are 1) a decade-long connection with Jamie Cullum's Twentysomething album and 2) my equally long-lasting (albeit somewhat lapsed) connection to the TwentySomethingBloggers (20SB) community.

As such, I have decided to listen to Mr. Cullum's album as I write this blog post, and I have decided that this blog post will be the first in a series of daily updates—letters from my 29-year-old self that I hope to look back on for many years to come. I don't expect that my life will be significantly different simply because I survive another trip around the sun, but I do hope that my life continues to be impacted by the memories I choose to share and remember and by the friends I meet and love because of the Internet. That is why I started blogging in the first place, and it's why I continue to share photos and tweets and vlogs and Tumblrseses and so on.

So here's to another year of memories, another year of friendships, and one last year of being a twenty-something. Cheers.

I only sign in to Facebook on Mondays, and when I do, it's a very focused mission with three critical items on the agenda. 1) Look at all the tiger photos that Suzi tagged and curated for me. It's a special treat, and it never fails to warm my heart. I don't need extra reasons to love tigers or Suzi, but she gives them to me anyway because she is incredibly generous. 2) Tell the Internet how many loads of laundry I've completed. This started as a joke because I didn't have anything else to share on Facebook, so I decided to transform my profile into a #laundrybook record. No one shot me for this dumb idea, and thus, it lives on. 3) Lead the sock monkey troops to victory in the few remaining "poke wars" that just won't die out.

One of those wars escalated a month or two ago when a friend sent me a handcrafted poke in the mail. I just put a stamp on my return poke tonight (shh, don't tell him it's coming), and I couldn't help but smile. We know each other through his sister, and I know his sister through the blog of a brilliant woman known as Golfwidow. It's one of those friendships that is incredibly difficult to explain to people who haven't experienced a true Internet community. And heaven knows the struggles involved with convincing people that there is any merit to be found in the Facebook poke feature.

But here we are—weird stories, silly games, postage, and all—and I realize for the second time today how much I like my friends and how much I like my life.

Next time someone interrupts, fake-sneeze in his face and use that moment to casually resume your sentence.

I jotted that down on an index card the other night and left it on my bedside table, nestled among other treasured memorabilia like an expired coupon and a gigantic water bottle (half-empty or half-full, your choice) that my dad bought for me when we saw Frozen at the theater three weeks ago.

One of the appeals of blogging for me is that I can write down and convey a thought in its entirety. Something about my natural speaking voice invites people to tune out mid-sentence, at which point they either interrupt or just walk away. This happens at home, at work, in public, with friends, with strangers, and with family. I regularly have to convince my own mother that I'm worth a five-minute break from her jigsaw puzzle. (I know I'm not the world's best story-teller, but I like to think I have a smidgen bit more personality than a 1000-piece Thomas Kinkade cottage.)

For twenty-something years, I've been dealing with this by 1) allowing my frustration to simmer silently while the other person talks over me or 2) reclaiming the conversation through arm-flailing and foot-stomping. Either way, I exert so much energy that I then lose interest in continuing my train of thought, thus validating the other person's decision to cut me off in the first place.

It's a bona fide conundrum.

I'm sick of it.

So that is why I just sneezed in your face.