I dashed to the room where my smartphone was blaring a sitar ringtone, and pressed the red button, happy that I’d managed to locate the device before voice mail picked up. Well, I was happy until I realized I’d hung up on the caller, which is what the red button does, which you’d think I would know after having had the phone for three months.

So I opened the call log and returned the call to hear my brother’s voice on the line saying, “Hello?…..Hello?…..Is anyone there?” as I filled in the ellipsis with my own responses that he couldn’t hear with my mute button on. I figured out how to unmute the phone, but only after he hung up. So I tried calling him back again only to get a confused, Spanish-speaking person on the other end of the line, who I knew was not my brother because my brother took German in high school, not Spanish.

Then, finally, I managed to call my brother back at the proper number with the mute setting off, and started to have a conversation with him. But the first words out of my mouth were, “Oh God, this is what it’s like to be Mom.” I love my mother dearly (Hi, Mom!), and she’s the first person I’d ask to sew a hem or bake a lasagna, but she is also the first person who’d acknowledge that her skills with electronics are nothing to envy. I usually take on the role as her tech support, hooking up her TiVo and configuring her wireless phones. I speak gadget and she does not.

Until now. Because I must admit that I still screw up many basic operations on my smartphone, usually when I’m under the pressure of an incoming call, ring, ring, RINGING, away. I don’t do well under a time limit. I am not as fluent in smartphone as I am in DVR or HTML (and now they’re developing HTML5, so I can be not as fluent in that too).

So, less than a week before my birthday today, I realized it—I really am turning 30. As if by official decree, now is the moment when I start to lose my ability to operate electronics and slowly slip into the persona of an old person who wouldn’t be able to stop the VCR clock from flashing if VCRs still existed.

I am thirty years old today, and I’m not old, but I’m not young.

I remember when music came on cassette tapes. I remember when the phrase “world wide web” would have referred to an alien invasion of gigantic spider monsters, not this Internet thingamajig. I remember when a familiar actor appeared on a television show and I’d have to rack my brain for weeks until I spontaneously recalled a part he’d played, instead of just going to the IMDB. I remember when my elementary school teachers would ask me what I was going to be when I grew up, and the correct answer did not yet exist because neither did the Internet. I remember slap bracelets, and jelly shoes, and She-Ra. I remember when the year 2000 seemed far off and was a possible harbinger of the apocalypse.

I am thirty years old today, and I live in the future.

If I were to stand on my personal timeline and wave back at the person I used to be, she would be amazed by everything we have now. My smartphone is more complex than Captain Kirk’s communicator which didn’t do video. I have talked to people in France and Chile on the Internet for free. I can order almost anything I want online without leaving my apartment. I can work without leaving my apartment. I think it’s so strange that kids born today will take all these things for granted, just like I can’t imagine a world without microwaves, televisions, and telephones. A kid born today will view me in the same way as I view someone who was born in 1950. I remember when I thought someone who was born in the 60′s was from a distant era of time where whites and coloreds didn’t drink from the same water fountains, but in retrospect wasn’t that much earlier from when I was born. I remember feeling left out because I didn’t have a story for where I was when Kennedy was shot, and I remember wishing I still felt left out after September 11, 2001.

I remember hearing someone say, “Never trust someone over the age of thirty.” I’m not entirely sure what they meant, but I remember thinking that thirty was the age where people stopped trying to change to world to suit themselves and started changing themselves to suit the world instead. I don’t know if that’s true or not. I do know that 30 is the first birthday when you start getting cards joking about how old you are.

The reality of aging is that more and more of your life exists in the past, and less of it in the future. You convert all your potential tomorrows into a string of yesterdays. You have to concede that eventually your life will consist of only yesterdays and no tomorrows. I can’t say for sure how far along I am on my personal timeline, but hopefully I’m less than halfway done, and even more hopefully less than a third of the way to the end. (Mental note: Exercise more! Eat healthier! Wear sunscreen!)

There are lots of landmarks on my personal timeline. May 1998 was when I graduated from high school. October 2002 was when my dad left. November 2003 was when I had my gallbladder removed. I suppose thirty is just another landmark on my timeline that’s only given significance because of our base-10 numbering system. Sort of random and determined by the speed of the earth’s journey around the sun.

It’s a time to look to the past I’ve had and then look to the future I want and try to figure out how to join those points together. Regardless of what it was or wasn’t, I look back on the past 30 years and think, I’m good with that. Sure, I could have been more outgoing in college, or lost more weight before I got so fat, or parked my brother’s car in a space where it wouldn’t get hit by a drunken, hit-and-run driver while my bro was studying abroad in Italy. But all in all, it’s been pretty sweet, even with my never-ending headache. I don’t have many complaints.

So now I’m looking ahead to the next thirty years and trying to decide what I want to do next. What do I want to achieve? Who do I want to meet? Where do I want to go? And I think I should probably spend less time thinking and thinking myself in circles in my head and just try something whether I succeed or fail. Just do it. Go! Live!

So, I am thirty today and here I am, traveling somewhere between the future and the past, exchanging one for the other like dollars to euros. I’ve still got my She-ra action figures even if I lost my slap bracelet. I’m keeping my smartphone even if I accidentally call back the pizza delivery guy again. But it’s good to take a break, look around and appreciate the journey, to see where I’ve been and look forward to where I’ve still yet to go.

I just hope that when I’m 60, you youngins will teach Granny PastaQueen how to answer the phone.

Here we are lighting the cake.

And here we are still lighting the cake.

And here we are again, still lighting the cake, watching the frosting start to melt.

And finally, the cake is lit! My mother blew out the candles in one breath, proving that old age has not affected her lung capacity. Happy birthday, Mom! Here’s to 60 more years!

I figure people freak out over their 30th birthday for two reasons: 1) They look at their lives and are unhappy with what they’ve accomplished or failed to accomplish. 2) They fear old age, illness and their ultimate mortality. As for number 1, I am pretty happy with what I’ve accomplished at this point in my life, so no worries there. As for number 2 – HA! Illness? Old age? We are old friends. We have drinks every Friday night together.

I am always befuddled when a 28-year-old friend of mine tells me, “I found a white hair today!” as if this is shocking information. I found my first white hair when I was 21, and my older brother started getting them in high school. You have a white hair when you’re 28? You are way behind the curve my friend.

As for illness – ha, ha, ha! Sorry, give me a second to – ha, ha, HA! OMG, I have had more medical tests performed on me in the past two years than many people will undergo during their entire lives. I fear not illness and aging. Turning 30 won’t bring me any closer to those problems. Turning 20 did that.

Yesterday at work we made hamburgers with Krispy Kreme donuts as the buns. I don’t know why. These things just happen. One minute you’re talking about chocolate-covered bacon and the next you’re daring your boss to cut off two years of his life in two Krispy, greasy bites.

A lot of supplies are required to make donut burgers: a griddle, glazed donuts, ground beef, bacon, cheese, eggs and of course lettuce and tomatoes. Don’t forget your veggies! If you ever make these at your own workplace, a fried egg works well to cover up the donut hole. Don’t forget to toast your donut on the griddle for extra crispiness! But have thick plates and lots of paper towels because these are prone to drip.

I myself did not have a donut burger because the day before that we had frosted carrots for my birthday.

See? There are twenty-eight carrot flakes on top of a carrot cake, and they even spelled my name right. My coworkers are awesome. I’m going to miss them when they all have coronaries.

These pictures do provide a good timeline of how I’ve aged over the years, and what my taste in pastries was at the time. So today, I give you a history of cake.

Age: 10

Wearing a corduroy jumper made by mother. I was currently obsessed with headbands. Looks like we got out the fancy metal plates for the occasion! I love how my hands are encircling the cake, as if to say, “Mine, all mine!”

Age: 14

Wearing my marching band T-shirt and about to devour a Tazmanian Devil cake.

Age: 15

Wearing one of those long t-shirts we used to tie in a knot on the side, or if you were feeling fancy you’d use a plastic t-shirt tie. No, it wasn’t in fashion at the time :) Thank goodness it’s dark so you can’t see quite how frizzy my hair is.

Age: 16

Wearing one of the four plaid shirts I lived in at the time, even though grunge was on its way out. If I pre-dated these photos I could pretend I was trendy.

Age: 23

Wearing a Lane Bryant top, which was quite comfy but depressingly a size 24/26.

Age: 24

Down one gallbladder, but still able to digest high-fat ice cream cake. Weight, 372 pounds.

Age: 25

Finally decreasing in size, down to 260 pounds. Cake is noticeably smaller.

Age: 26

200 pounds! No longer obese. Let’s celebrate with cake!

Age: 27

At my lowest weight, 175 pounds. Am I smiling because of my size or because of the Oreo Blizzard cake? (Definitely because of the cake.)

Weight

I thought my scale might be stuck this month because I kept weighing in at exactly 176.6 for seven days. Usually the scale messes with me by modulating up and down erratically. Obviously it knows I’m on to it and has decided to mess with me by being eerily consistent. I was at around 177 this morning, which is down about three pounds since last month. Geez, this calorie counting thing seems to be working. Who’d have thought? Besides anyone who’s ever dieted. Ever. Except for me.

Exercise

I took it easy on my Achilles tendon for three weeks after I injured it by running five miles on Sundays like a crazy person. I used the elliptical machine in my apartment’s hot, sweaty, fitness room instead and felt really weird spending 22 minutes operating a machine that essentially does nothing. They should at least hook it up to a turbine so I can power the air conditioner while I ellipticize. I suppose I should get used to it though since winter is coming and even if I wanted to exercise outdoors in the cold it will be too dark before and after work to do that. I am back to running now, doing easy two-mile runs every other day. Heh! I just used the words “easy” and “two-mile runs” in a sentence together. When did I become the kind of person who could do that and actually mean it?

I tried a yoga class in my office building during lunch. It was…interesting. I didn’t hate it, but I don’t think it’s my thing. It did make me much more aware of how I carry my body. For the rest of the day I was like a puppet master yanking my own strings, reminding myself to sit up straight. The human body has a lot of muscles and I think 90% of my are set to slouch.

I also bought a new weight-training DVD (Cathe’s Muscle Max). I’ve been doing the same upper body weight routine (Cathe’s Pyramid Upper & Pyramid Lower Body) for seven months now. That’s bad of me. Your muscles get used to the routine and are not challenged like they are when you switch your routine frequently. I may exercise six days a week, but I am still a lazy person at heart and I didn’t want to learn a new routine. However, I discovered I can do half-assed push-ups now! Sure, I’m using my knees and I only go halfway down, but it beats my old technique of reenacting that bridge collapse in Minnesota. I also learned that if you haven’t been doing any lower body workouts DO NOT immediately attempt 24 lunges and squats. Or you can if you own a walking cane and don’t live on the second floor. I’ve been shuffling around like an 80-year-old woman because I can barely walk up and down the stairs. My quadriceps are shredded like mozzarella cheese.

Food

I’ve also been experimenting with cheat meals this month. I decided my Hallmark visit was one big cheat day full of cookies and lemon squares and M&Ms. Strangely, I was so distracted by everything I did that day that I hardly thought about food at all even though my eating was on a different schedule. It was nice not thinking about meal planning since I think about it so much the rest of the time.

Then I followed it up with a Dairy Queen Oreo Blizzard cake on my birthday last Saturday.

I ate half this cake. In less than 24 hours. And I don’t regret it. But it was strange falling asleep at 10:00 after the sugar crash.

The odd thing about being at a weight in between my goal (160) and a weight where I feel comfortable (180) is that when I’m given the choice between losing a pound this week or eating half a Dairy Queen Oreo Blizzard cake, some times I’m going to go with the Dairy Queen Oreo Blizzard cake. I have absolutely no guilt about it at all, which in many ways is far more fabulous than how unbelievably delicious that blend of soft serve vanilla ice cream, crisp chocolate wafers, and creamy white filling tasted. Oh, who am I kidding? Nothing is more fabulous than an Oreo Blizzard cake. I recently wrote that even if ice cream didn’t make you fat I’d still eat healthy most of the time. I now think that’s total bullshit because if I could get away with eating this all the time, I totally would. OhMyGodItWasSoGoodAndI’dTotallyDoItAgain!

Looking at that birthday photo and at the photos from my Hallmark trip, I am still amazed at how thin I look. And eating half an ice cream cake did not make 196 pounds instantly reappear. 196 ice cream cakes would though, so now I’m going to figure out how to cook this pumpkin I bought. If I get to use my scary, big, slasher knife it should be more fun than trick-or-treating.