20 Thoughts On The Apparent Sexiness Of Being 20.

1. I was watching this episode of "Alias" where the Bradley Cooper character is dating his 20-year-old assistant, and then it dawned on me: I'm old enough that I could realistically date Bradley Cooper. In fact, I could date any of my current or former celebrity crushes (at least the ones under 30) and the tabloids wouldn't care less about the age difference. They might wonder why, on a routine trip to L.A., Orlando Bloom had stopped to use the bathroom in Pomona College's music building and fallen for a smoldering yet charmingly witty research assistant, but that's another matter entirely.

2. Although I can't legally drink in the U.S. for another year, I'll be spending a third of that year in Russia. Which gives me eight scant months to feel like I'm getting away with something every time I drink. It'll be nice to be able to order wine at dinner and go to the good clubs, but I'll miss that feeling.

3. I'm now a twentysomething, which sounds a lot sexier and more sophisticated than "adolescent," which sounds like something out of a psychology textbook.

4. This decade is my last chance to be in a coveted demographic. Unless I count having Depends marketed to me once I turn 45.

5. Wasn't I supposed to figure out what I wantedt to do with my life by the time I turned 20? I kind of slipped up there, didn't I?

6. Things I've done since I turned 20, in no particular order: ate tapas, went swimming, watched several episodes of "Alias," made and consumed a few drinks, played with bunnies, ate sushi, edited about a million audio files, made Pad Thai, watched an episode of "Family Guy", played guitar, ate free cheesecake, listened to Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherezade twice in a row.

7. Oh, whatever. I've still got nine years, fifty-one weeks and four days to make the most out of my twenties.

8. And we're having a proper party tomorrow, anyway.

9. And free cheesecake, especially at my favorite restaurant, is damn good.

10. At the gym, I usually work out on the Elliptical machine. They ask you to enter your age using the up and down arrow keys, and the age they start out with is 20. Since I've been a gym-goer, I've had to use the "down" arrow. Now, for a year, I won't have to press any arrows at all. Then I'll have to use the "up" arrow for the rest of my life. What a sobering thought.

11. There's got to be at least one of those machines where the default age is 40.

12. I haven't thought of this video in a long time, but now that I'm past my teens, I can totally identify. I am that bunny.

13. Seriously, what gives? I picked up an issue of Maxim the other day (it was lying around in the mailroom) and I realized most of the half-naked girls in it were my age. And in their interviews they talked about all these wild sexual adventures they'd had. And--

14. God. I'm old enough to be featured half-naked in Maxim.

15. I mean, hypothetically. With a lot of airbrushing and maybe some surgery.

16. Once you're 20, people stop writing songs that mention your age. "You're sixteen, you're beautiful, and you're mine." "She was just seventeen, you know what I mean." "Beauty queen of only eighteen." "Eighteen with the attitude, nineteen kinda snotty actin' real rude." Then what?

17. Then again, that might be because nothing really rhymes with "twenty." Unless you slur it so it rhymes with "money," or pronouce it wrong so it rhymes with "plenty."

18. Hmmm. "She was twenty...kind of runty...I met her at a fun tea...we smoked a blunt-y..." OK. Never mind about the lack of songs.

19. Stereotypical twentysomething career options that appeal to me: writing for snarky Internet magazine, bartending, playing in struggling rock band.

20. As of now, I'm playing in a struggling rock band, have made fairly passable cocktails using the alcohol and professional-quality bartending equipment that my Russian professor left for us in her house, and have just finished a list inspired by "29 Thoughts On The Apparent Sexiness of _____", a regular feature on snarky Internet magazine Nerve.com. I'd say I'm doing OK at 20 so far.