-In less than ten short weeks, I will reach that most dreaded of milestones – my twenty-fifth birthday.  Soon, I will have been alive a full quarter-century.  Soon, I’ll be classified as “mid-twenties.”  Soon, (gasp!) I’m going to have to start taking responsibility for my actions.  In the words of my generation…dude, this sucks.  I think what’s ironic about the whole situation is that I used to be so mature for my age.  I was a precocious little kid.  I picked things up quickly in high school.  I had a good head on my shoulders in college.  Now, at the age of twenty-five, I’ve all of a sudden become immature for my age.  Great, at the rate this is going, by the time I’m thirty, I’ll be hitting puberty again.  Your twenty-fifth birthday is a time to take stock of your life.  It is a time to decide whether investing your money wisely or drinking until you vomit is appropriate behavior for someone of your advanced age.  In essence, twenty-five is the time to choose between growing up and throwing up.   This won’t be easy.

-First off, I’m not even sure that I qualify to be in my mid-twenties.  When I have dinner, I sit hunched over on a sofa bed in the halogen bulb-lit common room of my apartment eating take-out off of an IKEA coffee table while sipping grocery-store brand cola out of gas station souvenir glasses adorned with football helmets from teams that have since relocated.  I’m not even sure that qualifies as human.

-Before you turn twenty-one, the last thing you want is to get ID’d at the bar.  Once you turn twenty-one, you love getting ID’d at the bar.  Then you turn twenty-three and you start getting annoyed when you’re ID’d at the bar.  When you’re thirty, you again love getting ID’d at the bar.  At twenty-five, I don’t know if I should be insulted or flattered.  I guess the more important question is, why I am still going to the same bar?

-Twenty-five is an especially important milestone for my friends in grad school.  According to my friends, you don’t have to do any work at all in law school after your first year.  Then how come every time I call your cell phone, you pick up whispering in the library?  In a few months, my law school friends will have real, hard-core jobs for the first time in their lives.  Well, it’s been fun chilling with you guys for a while, see you in ten years!  Suckers.

-Med school, according to what I hear my from my friends, is the opposite of law school.  It just keeps getting harder and harder until you either go crazy or become a doctor, whichever comes first.  Now that’s comforting.  All I hear from my med school friends these days is complaining about how early they have to get up for their rotations and how tedious their lives have become.  I don’t understand this.  You knew this was going to happen all along.  You took bio in college.  You studied for the MCATs.  You’ve been in med school for three years.  They gave you a stethoscope for God’s sake, what did you think was going to happen?

-Quote of the Month.  With all this unexpected stress in their lives, some of my med school friends recently decided to do something very unusual: they went on spring break.  Little did they know that not everyone would be very receptive to their pale presence on the beaches of Acapulco.  My friend Triplet #3 (soon to be Dr. Triplet #3), was making small talk with some chick at a club.  He asked her where she went to school.  She told him Eastern Michigan University, and then asked him where he went to school.  He told her he already graduated and was now in medical school.  She said, “Get a life,” and walked away.  Ooooh, I think the proper medical term for that is “low blow.”

-In Triplet #3’s defense, though, twenty-five is the age when a guy can pretty much hook up with women of any age, from barely legal to middle-aged.  We’re just slimy enough to go for the college chicks while just adept enough to bag horny divorcees.  Of course, it all gets interesting at the bar when the girl you’re with gets carded and she could either be rejected, insulted, flattered, or old enough to be the bouncer’s mother.

-As for me, I’ve spent the past four years, almost the entirety of my early twenties, as a swinging bachelor.  I think that telling people about a new relationship is like finding out you’re pregnant – you don’t want to say anything for the first month or two just in case something terrible happens.  Hopefully, I’m out of the woods.  Yes, that’s right, while it may come as a shock to many of you out there, I’m happy to report that I actually have a girlfriend now.  Wow, that was hard for me to even type!  How did it happen?  Well, we were united by a mutual love of Family Guy, drink specials, anything made with four cheeses, and bad weather (since we both work from home and enjoy the suffering of others).

-My girlfriend is a strong woman, I’ll tell you that much.  She has to be.  After all, I refuse to dance.  I have no sense of direction.  I have terrible posture.  I’m a bathroom-flooder and a fast-walker.  I read the instruction booklet cover to cover before playing a new video game.  I hate shaving more than once a week.  I hate karaoke.  I hate her cat.  I hate all cats.  One of my armpits is hairier than the other.  I need all the bills in my wallet arranged facing the same way and in denomination order at all times.  I’m an insomniac.  I can’t whistle or tie a scarf.  I strongly prefer my honey mustard with more honey than mustard.  I’ve never used cruise control.  And when I tell stories at bars I tend to gesticulate wildly and knock over nearby beers.  Oh yeah, this’ll last.

-While having a girlfriend is a huge step for me, it’s small change for some twenty-five-year-olds I know.  Next month, my first friend from high school is getting married.    Ironically enough, the other day, as I was vainly trying on my old tux for the big occasion, a friend forwarded me a porn site – with what looked like another girl from my high school getting violated six ways to Sunday.  It just goes to show the wide spectrum of the twentysomething mentality.  Some of us are on our knees popping the question, while others of us are on our knees….OK, you see where I’m going with this one.

-After spending so much time thinking about my impending birthday, it’s sometimes good to reminisce about simpler times.  I recently filmed some segments for VH1’s “I Love the 90s,” which is coming out this summer.  It’s going to be a pretty funny show, but for some reason I have this sneaking suspicion that they’re going to edit out all of my witty comments about Seinfeld and snap bracelets and just feature me crooning The Fresh Prince of Bel Air theme song terribly off-key.

-And since I still perform at colleges, my perspective on getting older is influenced by those younger than me.  My little sister, Caryn, is graduating from Dartmouth in a few months and moving on to grad school at UCLA.  That makes me feel old.  Sadly, my fraternity at Penn, after a glorious and lecherous 97-year run, was just kicked off campus.  In a way, I feel like my own inner frat boy has been kicked off campus as well.  But not everything has been negative, however.  When I performed recently at Indiana University, it seemed like before the show everyone in the audience was a little, well, off.  I pulled one of the girls aside and said, “Excuse me, um, are you…high?”  And she said, “Yeah, we all are.”  “Why?” I asked.  “Well,” she said, “To see you.”  People were getting high just to see me!  How awesome is that?  You see, there is hope after all.

-It does seem, though, that older people do remember clearly what it’s like to be in their early twenties.  I was at a bar a few weeks ago and some dancing drunk girl knocked into my arm which caused me to jerk my hand up and chip a tooth on my Amstel Light.  When I called my dentist’s office the next day, I told the receptionist that I needed a chipped tooth fixed but didn’t say how it happened.  She looked at my chart, saw my date of birth and said, “So, beer bottle, right?”

-I’ve noticed a strange phenomenon among my friends and I as we enter our mid-twenties: both our alcohol tolerance and the length of our hangovers is increasing.  Never did I think that I would be able to hold more liquor now than I could in the dog days of college.  It’s quite a mystery.  Of course, the side effect is that my hangovers are twice as brutal.  My buddy Claudio got so bombed recently, he actually threw up two days later.  Now that’s impressive.

-I was recently asked to come back to my old high school to speak to the graduating seniors.  I don’t know about it, though.  I don’t want to be that guy at the assembly that no one is listening to, you know?  What would I even tell the kids?  That if they study hard, when they get to be my age they can still go on spring break, bang older chicks, become a lawyer or a doctor, cause bodily injury while partying, get married, appear in online porn videos, or drink themselves into hangover-comas every other weekend?  Hmm, now that I think about it, that’d be one pretty cool assembly…

-So my early twenties are numbered.  I’m not twenty-five just yet, though.  I still can’t legally rent a car in about forty states.  I still think that box wine is an appropriate gift.  I still have no idea which hand towel to use in someone else’s bathroom.  But it is time to look ahead.  I’ve set some pretty lofty goals for my late twenties.  I’d like to win an Emmy.  I’d also like to appear in a rap video with the logo on my t-shirt inexplicably blurred out.  But there’s really one thing that I want in the future more than anything else – my own toilet.  Now, I’m not talking about having my own bathroom, plenty of people my age have that.  But other people can use it.  I’m talking about a toilet that I and only I am ever allowed to use.  One whose lid answers only to me.  That’s right, I want a virgin bowl.  It may seem silly to some, but to me, having a virgin bowl marks true success in this world.  It means wealth, power, and cleanliness.  Hey, I can dream, can’t I?  After all, that’s what you’re supposed to do when you’re twenty-five.

-As always, here are some random things I’ve been ruminating about lately…

-I think that if I invented a food that was both low-carb and whitened your teeth, I’d become a billionaire.  Because everything that’s advertised these days is one or the other, right?  Imagine if there was cheese or something that was both Atkins-friendly and brightened your smile?  Now that’d be some cheddar.

-I don’t understand people who “can’t take compliments.”  You know, these are the people who cringe and get all awkward when you say something nice about them because they “don’t know what to say back.”  How about “thank you,” douchebag?

-At Passover Seders last week, the ten plagues that God visited upon the Egyptians to punish Pharaoh were recited.  This is something I never understood.  Why didn’t God just kill Pharaoh?  Wouldn’t that have been a lot easier?  The Jews would have gotten to go free and no innocent cattle or first-born children would have had to die.  I mean, come on God, eliminate the middleman.

-I think that “cross-ventilation” is a myth.  Every time I open a window, someone always says, “Wait, let me open this door too, we’ll get a cross-breeze going.”  No, we’ll just be getting wind from two different sources.  You know that compliment I just gave you?  I take it back.  You’re an idiot.

-Memo to dudes wearing sports coats over t-shirts in bars: you’re kidding me, right?

-When I swipe my card at the front desk of my fancy gym, the person at the desk always says with a toothy grin, “Enjoy your workout, Aaron.”  Enjoy?  What’s to enjoy?  Sharing a locker room with naked, unusually hairy men?  Being asked to “work in” when every other machine in the place is available?  Running the treadmill with every TV set to the “The View”?  When I swipe my card, they should just say to me, “Wow, this is gonna suck.”

-Let’s face it, the best show on television right now is “The Apprentice.”  I have considered, like I’m sure millions of others have, applying to be on the next season of the show.  But I didn’t apply for one reason – too much packing.  Have you noticed that the contestants have to pack all their clothes up in their little rolly suitcases every time they go to the boardroom, and then unpack if they don’t get fired?  And I’m sure they have to iron everything after that.  It’s just not for me.  I’d love to run a multi-million dollar corporation, but I hate folding pants.

-One thing that I’ve always wanted to do was start my own slang.  I mean, rappers can do it, why can’t I?  So here’s one I came up with many, many years ago: using the word “gourmet” to mean “cool” or “dope.”  For instance, one could say, “Damn, those sneakers are gourmet!” or “That chick you took home last night had a gourmet ass.”  I think it’s pretty good.  How about we all start using it and see what happens?

-My roommate Brian redefines “thinking with your stomach.”  He actually remembers dates by recalling what food he ate that day.  Last week, I asked him if he knew when he last paid the cable bill.  He thought for a moment and then said, “It was President’s Day.  I remember because I had this amazing porterhouse the night before.”  Of course, this is the same man that once fell asleep in his bed with a half-eaten grilled chicken sandwich in his hand, who once claimed to have a “meat hangover” after dining at an all-you-can-eat Brazilian restaurant, and who once spent half an hour pontificating to Triplet #1 about how it’s possible that a meatball parmesan hero is actually made with mozzarella because the word parmesan in that instance refers to a style of preparation and not the type of cheese used.  You gotta love the bastard.

-Brian and I have a stack of photos piling up on the IKEA coffee table in the common room of our apartment.  Every photo has two things in common: both of us are in the picture and we only have one copy.  Since we are unable to come up with a fair way to divvy them up, the pile just keeps growing.  Triplet #2 once asked Brian what we were going to do about the pictures when we move out.  Replied Brian, “Fight to the death, I guess.”

-Meanwhile, another potential domestic crisis was narrowly averted last week when we ran out of toilet paper.  Since I left Wall Street to become a comedian but Brian still has a “real” job, somewhere along the way it became my implied responsibility to keep us stocked up on toilet paper.  Fed up with this treatment, I didn’t buy anymore this time, but didn’t say anything about it.  I just left the last empty roll hanging on the dispenser and waited to see if Brian would go and buy more himself.  But he never said anything.  After a day or so, I took some rolls from my girlfriend and hoarded them in my closet for my own use.  A few more days of the TP embargo passed and Brian still hadn’t said anything about it.  Meanwhile, I had no idea what he was using in the bathroom.  As Toilet Papergate reached Day Six, I considered sending my girlfriend as an emissary to talk to Brian’s girlfriend about the situation.  After a week, Brian finally asked me what the hell was going on.  Apparently he had just been using tissues from his room.  After much negotiation, consensus was reached, the embargo was lifted, and we agreed to split the responsibility in the future.  Can you believe that our girlfriends think we’re strange?

-Aren’t parents just adorable?  The tiniest little things make them happy.  My mom just got a new cell phone.  Last time I was home, I changed the greeting on the main screen of her phone from “Verizon” to “Supermom.”  Considering her mastery of this device is limited to dialing my number and hitting the key with the picture of the green phone on it, I won like a thousand good son points.

-Has anyone else had the theme song from “The OC” stuck in their head for about six weeks now?

-When did the word “nice” become the standard response to everything?  When anyone tells you anything and you don’t know how to respond, you can always say, “Oh, nice, nice.”  And why do we say it twice?  Is that to reinforce the point that the statement we just heard has little to no relevance and that the entire conversation up to this point has in fact been one huge waste of time?

-Have you ever noticed that no one has any idea how to use the conference call feature on their phone at work?  You’ll be talking to a buddy and say, “Hey, why don’t we get Jeff on the phone?”  And your friend will fiddle around for a minute and then say, “Hold on,” put the phone on his shoulder, lean back in his chair, peer out of his cubicle and shout, “Hey, does anyone know how to use conference on these phones?”

-If you’re anything like me, then you probably spend a good chunk of your day reply-to-all emailing with all of your buddies about what you did last night, what you’re going to do tonight. and what you’re doing this weekend.  Some days, you’re like the leader of the pack and you’re replying to all the emails in like five seconds.  And some days, when you’re really busy, you get annoyed when yet another stupid email pops up.  Have you ever not checked your email until like noon and you have about 57 messages, 51 of which are from your friends?  And you think to yourself, wow, imagine if we knew how to conference call!

-Sometimes, if I’m at a bar and some dude starts hitting on my girlfriend, I’ll let him.  After all, for the past four years, that guy was me, so I empathize.  Only if she’s ever really in trouble will I step in and say, “Hey, listen buddy, that’s my girlfriend you’re hitting on.”  Hopefully, the next time I do that, the guy will be like, “Really?  Damn she’s gourmet.”

-I walked into a Starbucks the other day and was talking on my cell phone when all of a sudden something very strange happened.  I got shushed.  That’s right, someone actually shushed me.  I turned around and saw that the entire place was filled with people studying – med school kids in fact.  Is nothing sacred anymore?  It was like a fucking study lounge in there.  Shouldn’t you people be on spring break or something?

-And, finally, it is with bittersweetness that I write that I’m taking a few months off my Ruminations column.  But don’t worry – you haven’t heard the last of me.  I will be working on the sequel to my hit book, “Ruminations on College Life.”  My new book, “Ruminations on Twentysomething Life,” will be published by Simon & Schuster in 2005.  In other words, the best is yet to come.  Sharing my early twenties with all of you has been an especially amazing experience.  Looking back, I think that our early twenties are marked by size, or rather lack thereof.  We are trapped in tiny cubicles and living in cramped apartments, earning small salaries and getting laid way too little.  But we still dream big.  With that in mind, try not to let the inevitable setbacks of twentysomething life get you down.  And when shit hits the fan and everyone is looking to you for answers you don’t have, I hope you’ll think of me and, with a glint in your eye, shrug your shoulders and say, “Fuck me.”

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