It’s my 28th birthday today and, as I look back, it’s weird to realize how long I’ve been using the web. I had my first website when I was 12 — “The Page of Qaz” — and I started my first blog on LiveJournal when I was in college, which ranged from poetry attempts to stream-of-consciousness writing to premature, emotional outbursts. Most was written from 2003-2005 and I’ve since removed almost everything from the site, but I thought it’d be fun to revisit the 28 most ridiculous quotes from that LiveJournal and share them. Y’know, so I can show how mature I’ve become since. And stuff. Enjoy!

1. “My heart swells like a passenger-side airbag as she drives me into a bridge abutment.”

2. “So take it all in stride, find the punch-line to life’s punches, and don’t take any of it too seriously. Be serious when you need to be, of course, but learn to laugh, too.”

3. “It may feel like a lot of baggage to carry for your future travels, but it’s not.”

4. “Reality wears an iron glove and it just bitch-slapped me in the face.”

5. “She doesn’t talk to me unless I talk to her, but when I do she gives all the tell-tale signs of utter infatuation. As if her favorite food is apricots, but only when someone offers them to her.”

6. “Another conductor waves their baton at me, urging my heartstrings to join the orchestra, but I’m held back by my own fears and desires. Maybe I’m in the wrong section or playing the wrong instrument.”

7. “I know that the last time I went on this ride, I was not wearing a seatbelt and basically went through the windshield in a beautiful disaster of glass and pain. It was too fast, too furious, and too frustrating. But that doesn’t mean I should never sit in a car again. Wounds heal, senses dull and skins grow thicker as time goes on and we live our lives. But the heart is equally vulnerable at all times, in all cars, on all kinds of rides.”

8. “In the real world with all the cookie-cutter stuffed-shirt conservatives and the brand-infected poster-boy prima donnas who think that Ludacris and Lil Jon represent the pinnacle of good music, I fit in about as well as a three-hundred pound woman does in a size four.”

9. “…I’m a person of function. I can’t dilly-dally, I can’t do small talk, and I hate just driving around aimlessly. I can’t even watch NASCAR because to me it’s just cars driving around in a circle. I’m still an impatient brat, and I currently have no plans to grow up.”

10. “I go swimming in my mind and I always seem to forget my floaties.”

11. “She was an angel — but from another angle, I don’t know anymore and I find myself losing faith in my own judgment.”

12. “Indecision and passivity are vices I can’t stand. They may not be biblical vices and they don’t need to be. In the church of Geoff, they are the unforgivable sins because there is no benefit or reason for them. ‘Whatever’ is a more damnable word than Carlin’s seven you can’t say on the air.”

13. “‘Dammit, Janet! Why do you have to crush my trapezoid like that?’ She sniggered and took another bite out of my smorgasbord of unfortunate disorders. So I retaliated, and threw the only ammunition I had in return. My heart missed, and fell into a precipice.”

14. “How the leaves dance across the quad to the tune of an 18th century ballad, flying with the grace of Fred Astaire over the concrete sidewalks without touching. A spiral of maple and pine children jump into the air, singing ring-around-the-rosy as they encircle a passerby who can’t help but smile at her playmates.”

16. “Don’t wear your heart on your sleeve, you’ll get blood on your shirt.”

17. “How wrong I was. And worse, how sure I was that I was right.”

18. “I think your true friends are the ones who stick by your side through all the stupid things you do [when you’re sober] — not all the stupid things you don’t remember doing.”

19. “It’s time to get your gonzo on, write a will, and decide what it was so you can decide what it will be. After all, redefining your redefinition of your refined refinements with referred references may be the only thing saving you from duct-taping your cellphone to your head and taking a long bath in Onondaga Lake.”

20. “Women. I understand women about as well as I do a braille keypad on a drive-thru ATM.”

21. “On second thought, wouldn’t giving someone time and space make them God?”

22. “I look in the mirror and it’s always an unfamiliar face that I somehow recognize. I see that little blonde-haired boy with blue hearing aids who needed a hand to hold — he’s still there, looking up at me for help.”

23. “Heaven is a dancefloor. And I think sunrise occurs when the club closes and the DJ watches a sweaty mass separate and drive home with a smile.”

24. “I wish I were a pen, dictating my life story and writing characters in and out as I see fit… It’s my book, dammit, and I’m the main character. I’m the star. There are no little-did-he-know moments because I know everything that is going on. I purge it all in a cacophony of words, sentences, paragraphs and terrible metaphors. The only thing I don’t know is what happens to the guest stars of chapter 3 after I edit them out and, frankly, I don’t really care what happens to them after chapter 3. We’re on chapter 24 now, baby, and there’s no room for you in the story anymore.”

25. “Wounded pride goes with every outfit.”

26. “I’ve always believed that leading with your heart is taking a step in the right direction. And I’ve always led with my heart, meaning I’m always stepping forward with my right foot. However, if you keep stepping forward with your right foot, you’ll just keep going in circles, won’t you? You’ve got to take a left step here and there.”

27. “Sure, looking at a happy photograph from days gone by makes you sad that you’re not still in that happy moment, but you gotta remember, Geoff, that the moment was only that: a moment. And getting rid of those remnants won’t make you forget them any sooner. So don’t. Don’t forget. Remember.”

28. “Life is a sexy Molotov cocktail of pain, misery and unabashed tears – with smiles in between each sip. Enjoy it all.”