5. Whenever I seek happiness by attempting to conquer my fear of the unknown, I head to the kitchen and try to figure out what the furry, teal-colored thing on the second shelf of my refrigerator is. It's been there since February, and the nanny swears she once heard it squeal. But perhaps you're one of those high-achieving individuals who burns with joie de vivre and your Everest actually involves scaling Kilimanjaro. You go, girl! Just know that it's perfectly normal to lose a little of that joie as you cling to the back of your deeply resentful guide while googling "altitude sickness" before the hallucinations take over and you suddenly believe you're in a Liam Neeson movie.


6. Newt Gingrich thinks we should colonize the moon, to which I say bless his heart and pack his bag. The thing is, I don't need to go to the moon; frankly, I'm not even crazy about going upstairs. I know that to imagine a tomorrow more advanced than today is essential. But in the words of my darling aunt Miriam, "I'm just going to hang back until they open a Costco up there."


7. Still dreaming of sailing the seven seas? Three words: Italian cruise ship.


8. A good past-life regression therapist might be able to hypnotize you back to better days, but as far as I can tell, the people who go in thinking they were once a Rothschild or Cleopatra come out having learned they were actually a yam shaped like Hitler.


9. Lately I've begun to realize that the only sure thing about the gift of life is that sooner or later, we're all going to have to return it to that big Neiman Marcus in the sky. There's no doubt about it, death is the ultimate odyssey. To make it a happy one, I hope they send me off in horizontal stripes—because God knows, I could never really get away with them in life.


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