#300 - happy birthday to me

i was going to save post #300 for pics from my trip to portland, but as my 28th birthday has come and gone, i decided that numbers are insignificant. what's in a number? does being #300 make this post any more important than post #299 or #301? being that they all come from my brilliant mind, no, of course not. was i so drastically different yesterday at age 27 than i am today at age 28? doubtful. so i use this post on the day after my birthday to make some birthday wishes. some impossible birthday wishes. see now that i'm all adult-ified with a job and salary and everything, if there's some material thing that i'd actually want to put on a birthday list, why wouldn't i just buy it? so instead i reflect on how i would like things to be going in my life at this very moment and what things i would like to see changed. and to that end, i have created a list of my top 10 impossible birthday wishes... in order of most improbable to least.

10. i wish people would be better. better drivers, better parents, nicer to each other, kind-er, more forgiving. as a human race, i wish people would treat each other as humans, it has been happening less and less frequently recently, at least in my scope of life. take time to consider others. ditch the "ainokea" attitude and start caring.
9. i wish parents would make better decisions about their procreation activities. stop having kids if you can't afford to raise them (both financially and not). stop procreating if you're not prepared to deal with the consequences of your actions. realize that once you have made that decision you have more than your own life to take into consideration.
8. i wish, as a culture, we all could stem the trend of self-victimization. stop using abuse as an excuse to stop doing the things mentioned in wish #10. i wish people would stop saying things like, "you don't have the right to say that to me," or "i deserve..." and "i am entitled to..." i wish people could suppress their "knee-jerk" reactions to every "scandalous" or "outrageous" event that transpires and use reason to resolve conflicts. things happen, the seconds never stop or tick backwards so there's nothing else you can do but move on.
7. i wish people would be smarter... at least smart enough so that i no longer have reasons to use my two favorite phrases... "no shit, sherlock" and "thank you, captain obvious."
6. i wish people would use better grammar, or at least be aware of the appropriate times to use formal vs. colloquial language (this goes out especially to those news anchors who say "thanks very much").
5. i wish i could find a girl who has NONE of the qualities listed above...
4. i wish the makaha peacock lady is proven completely innocent and gets a pat on the back for a job well done. (on a related note... i also wish that damn parrot would shut the hell up. or that it's owners would show a little more consideration to their neighbors.)
3. i wish fox (or someone else, since obviously they are idiots) would un-cancel dollhouse
2. i wish the rainbow wahine would blow past illinois, take out michigan/stanford, upset penn state in the final four, and win a 5th national women's volleyball championship, GO BOWS!
1. i wish i could give up trying to control everything and everyone else around me, stop worring about how to further my self-pity and get on with living my life to the fullest extent possible.

in fact, that last one is SO possible... consider it... DONE!

...now, blow out the candles