The final week of my twenties has arrived, and I am floating in a pool of nostalgia—Seventeen magazine in one hand, Capri Sun in the other, and my hair pulled back in a scünci. Part of that is because I spent the morning photographing my Teeny Beanie Babies before sending them off to a new home, part of that is because I'm always perilously sentimental, and part of that is because I just went traipsing through my blog archives to find out what I wrote about when I turned twenty. (Spoiler alert: my teen years ended just a few days after Hurricane Katrina obliterated New Orleans, and I was too busy writing about that to say anything reflective about aging or whatever. How weirdly mature of me! I did line up a date with Elijah Wood that weekend for the release of his Green Street Hooligans flick, though, so that was a refreshing bit of normalcy.)

I've been on a kick of cleaning out closets and other neglected corners for the past few weeks, getting rid of trash (cell phone bill from 2003, oh, how cheap you were) and treasures (Teeny Beanie Babies) and so many saved notes from high school. This is all part of a campaign to downsize the amount of possessions I will someday take with me when I get my underpaid butt into my own apartment, which will instantly look like a page from the West Elm catalogue because that's how uncluttering works.

Operation: Living Solo has chewed up whatever free time I had in August (which wasn't much; sorry for failing VEDA), and I expect that it will consume most of my September, as well, with some notable exceptions:

1. XOXO Festival: By sheer magic, my boyfriend and I both got tickets to XOXO this year (first time for both of us), so we will be spending a weekend in Portland with artists and musicians and nerds. Some of my favorite Internet people will be there, and I am excited to freeze in front of them and later kick myself for being so damn shy.
2. Frodo Baggins' Birthday: Woo!
3. Birthday Shindig Weekend: Because my job tries to kill me every August with an insane to-do list, I do not have enough brain left to plan anything for my actual birthday, September 4. Instead, the last weekend of the month is going to involve some eating and drinking and belated merrymaking in Chicago! Details to come.

So I've shared some thoughts and some news, and I guess that is how blogging happens? Hashtag the end.