This video will be of interest to exactly two people

... but one of them is the birthday girl, and she's had a rough week.

Thank you again, sincerely, for all of your well wishes and prayers for my mom this week. She went home from the hospital on Tuesday, and by all accounts, is fine. Well, other than the fact that she's celebrating a birthday today. I have a hard enough time with my 30's. Let's here it for the big 5-9.

Happy birthday, Mom.

17 Again

Before I went to Nicole's 1992 Prom Party this weekend, I dug up this old photo to justify the fact that polka dots were a legitimate trend in 1992.

But now, I guess I don't have to.

The party, as you would expect, was amazing. So amazing, in fact, that I lost my camera, most likely in the cab on the way home. So I have started a small Flickr set here, drawing on what has already been shared with me. I'll try to add others, as they come.

In the meantime, can anyone suggest models for a relatively inexpensive but takes-really-good-photos digital camera? I'd had the other one for almost four years, and in 10 years of owning a cell phone, I've never lost a single one, which should prove to you that I'm not usually this irresponsible. Just, apparently, regressing.

But hey - I suppose a camera isn't the worst thing people have lost on prom night.

Nights to remember

So, after all that, I had a fantastic birthday. Thank you to everyone who commented, called, emailed, Facebooked, texted, and just generally made me feel so special and loved throughout the day. My company gives us all our birthdays off (yay!) so I slept in a little, got my coffee, and opened up my computer to an entire screen of Facebook messages that continually kept me amused. I said it there and I'll say it here, Facebook is the best thing to happen to birthdays since cake. I don't care if I don't talk to half the people who chimed in - it was just a nice reminder of all the people who have, in 33 years, made up what I can't help but admit is a very charmed life.

When I wasn't chained to the computer, I took a new yoga class, got a FABULOUS facial, and met my five best friends for dinner and drinks. I got home shortly before midnight, full of cheap tacos and free shots, happy at making the most of my day.

Now that my birthday is over, though, I am ridiculously excited to concentrate on Nicole's birthday party planned for this weekend. The theme is 1992 Prom - we are all dressing in prom gear from the early 90's. I'll post pictures next week, but in the meantime, I thought I'd warm you up with some photos from my own high school dances from the same era.

Sophomore Semi-Formal - 1992

Oy to the vey, as Nicole would say. The thing is? I still love that color pink, and still wear it enough that I can shamelessly say, it's a good color on me. I stand behind the color choice, if not exactly the style.

This was an awkward event. Girls ask boys to this, for some reason, and while I was friendly with my date, I wouldn't say we were good friends. To be honest, I am not even sure why I asked him. We got along well enough but there was no attraction, and therefore no real excitement, and I'm pretty sure we just walked through the motions of sharing our first (semi-)formal dance. I was actually dating a junior at the time, though it didn't stop me from making out with yet a third person at the after-party. Said third person was actually Bryan, who I apparently still held a flame for and felt the need to remind him of what he was missing. Bryan didn't go to our school at that point - had just come to the after-party - so it wasn't like I stole anyone else's date.

Unlike at Junior Prom , in 1993, which was ripe with attraction, sexual tension, jealousy, drunkeness, and everything else John Hughes could have set me up to expect from a school dance.

First, I had the best date. Really fun, awesome guy who I was super comfortable with but also a tiny bit attracted to. Word had it, he was attracted to me as well, so we easily and candidly flirted throughout the night. The whole dance went by in a blur.

I should also mention, I loved my dress, thought my hair came out great, and overall, was just feeling really confident. It clearly shows, especially compared to the two other photos here.

The problem came at some point during the after party. My date managed to drink so much in such a short amount of time, he passed out. At which point, another guy (who went with my friend) swooped in to hit on me. I was flattered by and intrigued by the attention. This had never happened before! Two boys! Or actually, no boys. I resisted the second guy's advances, but because he tried to kiss me in the middle of a crowded room, word spread to both his date and my date, who then woke up and (if I remember correctly) had a testosterone-fueled tantrum about the whole thing. I couldn't say it out loud, but I was thinking, Dude. If you hadn't done that tenth keg stand, you could be rounding second base right about now.

Then there was my Senior Prom in 1994.

This pretty much sucked. Again, I was dating someone at the time, and I made the mistake of bringing him. He was in the grade below me, so while he had enough friends in my class, he was still more like "my date" than a natural part of the group. And since we had been dating for five or six months by then, there was no tension, no anticipation, no surprises. There was also no after-party. I remember everyone in my grade gathering in a parking lot somewhere discussing where to go. Talking and talking and talking and talking. No drinking.

Appearance-wise, while I liked my dress, I didn't LOVE it. I didn't feel sexy or attractive or whatever is appropriate for a 17 year old to feel. I had also had my hair blown out - but then the late-May, Northeast humidity immediately brought back the curl. So then I tried putting my hair up myself - to no avail - and ended up with the careless half-up/half-down look I wore to school on days when I couldn't fit in a shower. What did I care? The night hadn't even started and I was already looking forward to getting it over with. Boo...

So now that I am older, have better fashion sense, and can actually drink legally, you can see why I am very much looking forward to this weekend. It's not that I want to make up for lost time, exactly, but that I am more than ready to make new memories.

Here's to me, Mrs. Robinson

I went to a dinner party on Saturday night in which I was the only person not engaged, married, pregnant, or a parent. (Yes, I did consider throwing myself off the balcony, but we were only on the first floor.) As all the conversation inevitably turned to mommyhood, one of the girls said something to the effect of while she hated being pregnant for what it did to her body, she loved the nine months of attention it brought her.

That's kind of how I am feeling about my birthday tomorrow. (Or, by the time most of you read this, today). The email and the Facebook messages have already started rolling in (thank you!) and with each one, I feel a surge of excitement, of pride, a sense of validation that I matter. I thrive off of the attention. And yet, in the downtime between each new message, I find myself still dreading 33, unable to escape the unusal feeling of being uncomfortable in my own skin.

I know 33 isn't old. (Even though I saw, in response to a Facebook friend's comment about turning 30, that the girl "didn't have to worry about going downhill until [she was] 33." Yikes.) I also know that there's no use getting upset, because 33 is the youngest I'll ever be. It's just the mental image of 33 - that I should be an adult, have wrinkles and gray hair, and have children - that seem so far removed from where I am. Don't get me wrong - I have plenty of wrinkles, plenty of gray hair. I just prefer to think of myself as a 25 year old with foggy mirrors and a finely honed sense of denial.

I have to say, 32 was a great year. While mentally, I probably wasn't the happiest I've ever been, I think I had more amazing - if not life-altering, life-affecting - experiences this year than ever. A brief recap:

- Malibu beach birthday party
- Kristin's bachelorette party in Las Vegas
- Kristin's wedding in Tarrytown
- Time travel in Canyon Ranch
- I inexplicably and rather immediately became a yogi.
- The Cringe Book
- OMG I purchased an iPhone (and I swear, it has changed my life)
- Crazy condo shopping
- Peru!
- Happy day, Mr. President!
- I miraculously found a good dentist!
- And ultimately started Invisalign!
- I finally got a dining room table. And a washer/dryer!
- My writing class. With Chaka.

- I was textually assaulted.
- Disneyland!
- Still and always, a fame whore

- Adopted a(n invisible) pet
- I met Dooce and Stephanie Klein
- Party weekend in Palm Springs!
- The weekend in which Swingers met The Graduate
- And probably a ton of other things I am forgetting about, but really, how freaking lucky am I?!

I don't know when birthdays became about meeting mental goals or elaborate expectations we've set for ourselves. I know that ultimately, it has to do with feelings of insecurity, inadequacy, and it appears I'm never too old to be affected by either. But at what point, do you think, I'll be able to stop being wistful and just remain thankful for the amazing amount of life I've already lived? I know they say youth is wasted on the young, but it will be a big mark of maturity for me if I can ever just revel in my achievements.

I was in yoga yesterday, bent way back in camel, when I heard a big thump on the floor in front of me. I didn't pay any attention at first - people topple over in yoga all the time. But then I heard gasps and a number of people moving hurriedly across the room. I looked up, and the tall, skinny girl who had been demonstrating the move just seconds before was now horizontal, hands shaking yet eerily still, on the hardwood floor. I couldn't tell if she was laughing or having a seizure.

It turned out she had fainted, her heart having spent too long higher than her head. But it took a few seconds for her to come to, and in that short amount of time, I wondered if she might have been dead. It sounds silly, trite, to talk about now. Of course she was okay. Of course I was just projecting my own Hollywood-inspired, worst-case-scenario scenario. I was already writing the blog post in my head. But in those few minutes as she lay still, then came around, and eventually walked out with the EMT's, it was a sober reminder about how fleeting health can be.

For my 33rd year, I don't expect to change much from 32. I won't suddenly stop being wistful, won't always remember to appreciate what I have. But I think I lived more in the past year - tried things out of my comfort zone, acted a bit more spontaneous, and just challenged myself in ways I haven't been in a while - and that is a lifestyle I would be proud, for one more year, to put forth.

Pocket full of sunshine

In my last post I mentioned that I quit cheerleading a few times. At one point I was afraid of competition, at another I had just had enough, but what I didn't mention was that through all of it, I was never particularly good at it. I mean, I got by, but, having never been a dancer or exceptionally coordinated, I was usually one of the last to learn the cheers, and when I did, was often half a move behind everyone else.

Exhibit A:

Possibly the best thing cheerleading brought me, however, was my friend Miya.

She joined the squad my sophomore year, and we immediately gravitated to each other, became fast friends. We'd spend time before practice ogling wrestlers in the gym, and time after practice making friends with the bad boys from adjacent towns. Despite all the high school debauchery, however, what I liked most about Miya was that she was one of the most normal, down to earth girls I knew, a breath of fresh air from some of the personalities on our cheering squad.

We lost touch for a few years during college; then, in 2001, we were randomly reconnected in New York. We were back to spending weekends together, be it in the Manhattan clubs where she worked as a bartender, or in the Hamptons where she worked the scene. She seemingly knew everyone, or at least knew how to befriend everyone, what with ten feet of personality packed prettily into a five foot frame.

So imagine my excitement when she moved to LA a year after I did. I had built a bit of a social circle here by that point, but most of those were new friends, having known me for a few months, or, at most, a few years. Having her here was like heaving a sigh of relief; I didn't have to audition so much for friends anymore, or tell stories from adolescence no one could quite understand. She knew me back when I wore braces and teased my bangs and, god help her, liked me anyway. For the first time since I moved 3,000 miles away, I finally felt completely at home.

(video enclosure)

Thirty-too-old-to-party-like-this-but-too-young-to-stop-now!

Where to begin, where to begin.

My Birthday! Weekend! Spectacular! actually started on Friday night, not with any birthday activities but with my seeing Sex and the City: The Movie. What can I say? I loved it. I'm a chick. I loved the show. I have the six-season DVD box set that I play in between the PG-rated reruns on TBS. The movie was like watching a yet-to-be-taped Season 7, a confectionery mini-series minus commercials. I loved the writing, the cinematography, the wardrobes. The plot was a little simplistic and slow and some details were completely unrealistic, but none of that mattered. I sat in the theater for two-plus hours with a shit-eating grin on my face and I swear it had nothing to do with the bottle of vodka I sneaked into my Sprite.

Saturday morning I woke up bright and early to prepare for the second annual birthday party with Nicole. Our friend Lauren let us host the party at her fabulous Malibu house, so we spent the day food shopping and prepping and generally, just party planning. The event started at four, most guests started showing up around five, and by seven the party was in full swing, just in time for the start of a gorgeous sunset.

Why yes, that is the view from the deck.

By nine or so I decided it was time for a dance party.

I thought I might demo The Charleston.

And practice my showtunes.


"Together, wherever, we go"

I think the last guests left around 11:30 or midnight, and I crashed soundly in the guest room, so, so, so happy.

Sunday we woke up, cleaned, and just lazed in the sun, sleeping off our hangovers. There could be worse things.

My company gives everyone the day off for our birthdays, so I took full advantage of that this year, and spent the day cleaning, running errands, and catching up on general weekend stuff I had to forgo in lieu of party-planning. Oh, who am I kidding. I slept late, spent half the day on the phone and the other half marveling at all my awesome Facebook messages, feeling extremely blessed to have so many wonderful people in my life who actually remember to wish me happy birthday. Who am I? And how did I get so lucky? I know I wrote something similar last year, and I don't want to repeat myself, especially since I am too tired to articulate it as well, but I just feel ridiculously, overwhelmingly blessed.

I also feel extremely exhausted and have been nursing a weird case of heartburn since last night (why, hello 32 - is that you?) but I still met Tracy out for dinner tonight, capping off my birthday weekend with the girl who has been my best friend since I moved out here three years ago. I really could not ask for anything more than what I have, and I am so glad my 32nd year has started out as amazing as it did.

Next stop: Vegas. Four days and counting...

Sunflowers and moonbeams

I know there's something to be said about looking at other people's vacation pictures - usually, that "they're so boring." But my friend Andra just got back from her honeymoon in Switzerland, and I find myself repeatedly browsing through her album, looking just one more time, until Snapfish decides I've overstayed my welcome.

I went to Switzerland during the summer of 1995 as part of a "teen tour" through Europe, in which we saw about six countries in four and a half weeks. Do I have stories from that trip! Remind me, one day when I have blogger's block, to tell you about meeting Richard Simmons at the top of the Roman Colosseum, missing our train from Venice to Munich (while our bags were already on it!), or how we made friends with a Tabasco sauce heiress who, at 19, had already been in and out of rehab more times than Lindsay Lohan. But anyway...

Of all the countries we saw, I have always remembered that Switzerland was my favorite. I had never seen mountains like that, as high and jagged and snow-capped, even in summer! Set against the lush green rolling hills, and architecture that continually made me feel like I was in a fairy tale, or The Sound of Music, I was smitten with Switzerland.

Browsing through Andra's album, I recognized a few sites, like the covered bridge in Lucerne, but mostly just marveled, nostalgic and envious, at the familiar-yet-forgotten landscape. Her pictures looked a lot like mine; yet, at the same time, they looked nothing like mine. Mine were taken with a teenage hand more than ten years ago, before digital cameras let us all delete and re-take anything that wasn't immediately album-worthy. Like her wedding photos, Andra's honeymoon pictures stirred something in me I wasn't totally prepared for and still can't explain.

And then I came to this:

You may recall that 1995 was also the year of the sunflower. I was in college then, and I think every girl had at least one sunflower poster on her dorm room wall, one shrunken t-shirt with a sunflower on the chest, and drew sunflower chains in the margins of her notebook during boring classroom lectures. Don't pretend you didn't.

That was also the summer that, when I wasn't on my trip, Andra and I spent quite a large amount of time together. We roller bladed around the town lake, drank fuzzy navels on the roof of her house, and even made a "Feel Good" mixed tape for all of our friends and decorated the cover with - can you guess? - sunflowers!

One of my favorite memories is a night that we drove down to hear her friend play at an 18+ club in Providence. It was a small little place and each band looked like they should be covering old Metallica songs, but there were a ton of kids from our graduating class there, so there was enough energy and drama in the room to keep my interest. Like most nights back then, word spread that one of the guys was having an after-party, so we drove back in anticipation of continuing the fun.

But, sometime in between the last set and our return home, the party got canceled, and we found ourselves with nothing else to do. Driving around aimlessly, we passed through a quiet street adjacent to a cornfield, and suddenly, I saw, high above the cornstalks, a whopping yellow full moon. Andra, who was driving, missed the vision before it passed behind the trees, so she put the car in reverse and drove like that, back a quarter mile, until it was again in plain sight. And then, as if the Iowa-like corn gave it a cue, the song "Footloose" came on the Feel Good Mix.

"Let's get out and dance!" I suggested, and we did just that. Ran through the cornfields, danced unselfconsciously to the song blaring out of the car windows, until it ended, and we got right back in. At 19, no cares in the world, except where the next party was and did you see that crazy full moon?!

Ultimately, we ended up just driving to the lake, sitting by the car, and listening to rest of the Feel Good Mix. I wrote, the next day in my journal, that "it was one of the best nights of the summer."

I know that we danced in a cornfield and not a sunflower field, but I have associated Andra with sunflowers ever since. Seeing that picture, at the end of a long roll of photos that already had me thinking of that summer, was like someone ripped into my subconscious and stole a memory I forgot I had. Presented it back to me in a way that, dream-like, wasn't exactly right, yet still made perfect sense.

When I shared this memory with Andra last week, she wrote back that, coincidentally, there had been a giant full moon at her wedding. And that just seems about right, considering that, for as long as I've known her, she's always brought a distinct light into my life.

Happy birthday, Andra, and congratulations again.

Celebrating 58 years of having the best hair in the family

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Thanks, Noj

Just when I think I couldn't be any luckier, that my friends couldn't be better, that I couldn't be more blessed, a Starbucks gift card shows up on my doorstep by way of a friend in Alaska, enclosed in a card with possibly the most eloquent birthday wish I have gotten in years.

A little something too much
For the person who needs nothing
And believes she has everything.

Like the giver, the gift was extremely generous, something way too much, and yet it was exactly the one thing I need every single day.

"Is he out of his mind?" I thought, repeatedly, out loud. "Who does this?!"

He who does this is a better friend to me than I am to him. My most loyal commenter, someone who actually quotes my old blog posts back to me in emails. He consistently encourages me with positive feedback on my writing, and reads between the lines of all my posts and calls me out on the crap.

Among all the correspondence we've shared this year, I know I could write more, share more with him, ask more questions about his life. There's no real reason I don't.

After my initial disbelief, this touching gesture left me speechless, at a loss, at least, for written words. I don't think you want to read a post that simply has "Wow" written over and over again. Although that's basically what I wrote to him in my first "thank you" email. Maybe now I should start working on a second.

I must have done something good

I've never liked using the word "blessed" before, as in, "I'm so blessed to have such-and-such in my life."

There's just something about the concept of "being blessed" that seems disingenuous to me; maybe because it implies a religious observance to which I don't relate, or maybe because a big part of me believes that no one is blessed or not blessed - we all make our own luck in this world for better or for worse. Maybe those are the same points. But I often think the word sounds forced or artificial, and I want the speaker to just take credit for the goodness that's in their lives instead of trying to assign it to a higher power.

So I became a bit annoyed with myself this weekend when all that kept running through my mind was how truly blessed I felt to have so many good people in my life.

Friday night, when I was looking for a photo to include with my birthday post, I found the stack of birthday cards from last year's big 30th birthday. It was a huge stack. I sat down on my floor and read through every one of them, and found myself in tears before I was even half finished. I don't know why they touched me so much; it wasn't like anyone wrote love poems or even much more than Happy Birthday, but the sheer number of them was overwhelming. And the few things that people did write were poignant and sincere, and I just started to feel unworthy of all the good wishes. "I'm so blessed", I thought, before I caught myself.

Saturday the phone rang all day, and I cherished the time spent catching up with friends and family on the east coast, some who I only talk to on birthdays and holidays, which makes our infrequent correspondence all the more important. Saturday night was the birthday party, and a big part of me was still insecure about friends showing up, staying, having a good time. Again, they all came, they all stayed, they all kind of made me wonder - today, when I was looking at the photos wondering just how drunk I must have been to barely remember them being taken - what on earth they possibly see in me. I'm not that cool. I don't deserve this kind of reception. I'm not being down on myself. I just don't understand how I could have gotten this lucky.

I think of all the ways I could be a better person, a better friend, and sometimes I wonder why karma hasn't kicked me in the ass already, paying me back for those times I ignore my cell phone or blame the time difference for my lack of communication. That's when I start thinking that my retribution is already being paid out through my perpetual state of singledom, that in exchange for bountiful friends, I will remain a spinster for life. Because there's just no way I deserve all of these amazing people and friendships in my life. Not without sacrificing something.

Sacrifice, retribution, blessed. These are words I don't use lightly, if at all. The irony is that, while I may not believe in "blessings", I chose the title for this post based on the lyrics of a nun. (Albeit, a renounced nun.)

Celebrating 31 years of always being ready to get the party started

Grandfather clause

I don't know that I can top last year's post, so I'll keep this short and simple.



Happy Birthday, Papa!

Happy birthday, Maria!

Happy birthday, Tracy!

(I said I wasn't going to do this anymore except for 30th birthdays, or else I'd never write about anything else, but since Tracy wasn't a reader last year, Happy 31st!)

I met Tracy more than five years ago in New York, kind of by chance, but it's funny, because of everyone in the world, she has probably made the biggest impact on my life as I know it.

In the fall of 2001, I was 25 years old and wrapping up my first three post-college years in New York. I lived with two guys in a huge apartment on 86th street, and while it had been fun for a long time, I had gradually come to resent sharing my apartment with a fraternity house. (My two roommates were wonderful and I am still friends with them - it was their friends that they continually invited over for post-parties at 4 AM, when my 25 year old self started calling it a night at 2.) Our lease was up in November, and we had all agreed it was time to go our separate ways.

I wasn't ready to live on my own yet, and didn't know anyone else who was looking to share an apartment; so, I started looking on Craig's List for someone who already had an apartment, had furniture, and in fact, just had an available bedroom for me to move into. Tracy's ad offered exactly that. I spoke to her on the phone, and she sounded perfectly normal, but this was back in the day before EVERYONE used Craig's List and I was a little bit wary of who, exactly, I would be meeting on there. I had already ruled out anyone in the East Village, or truthfully, below 14th street, so when I saw that she lived on 44th in a doorman building, I figured she was pretty safe.

I showed up and we hit it off immediately. It was a Sunday, and we had both blown our curly hair straight because we both had dates that night with guys who were both coincidentally named Mike (and who would later, coincidentally, come to screw us over). It was love at first sight. I left feeling happy and hopeful, and only slightly worried that Tracy would find someone else that she liked better than me. But I worried for nothing. I hadn't even made it home when she called to tell me that she really liked me and that she wanted me to be her roommate. YAY!

We had a lot in common, but because we each had our own group of friends, we didn't immediately spend boatloads of time together. Weeknights we'd spend on the couch watching TV, but most of our weekends we'd spend separately with our own friends, mine from Syracuse, hers from the University of Wisconsin. One thing that has always touched me was her first birthday party after I moved in, when she started introducing me to her other friends as her roommate, and then backtracked, and said, "Wait, but I mean, my friend, too." I would never have even noticed the difference, but because she thought to clarify, I began thinking of her as my friend and how lucky I had gotten through the powers of Craig's List.

Less than two years later, though, her life started moving in a different direction, and Tracy decided it was time to move back home, to LA. Other friends of hers had started moving back and her older sister had just had a baby, so she felt that the time was right to make a move. Tracy was the first person I knew in LA, and when I took my first work trip, in Feb 2004, she let me stay with her for a weekend to see how I'd like it. I loved it.

Coincidentally (or not) three other people I knew from New York (two were my roommates from 86th Street) moved to LA that year, and, sure enough, barely a year from that first work trip, I was here as well. While the other people I knew here were all guys, Tracy made it her job to take me under her wing and invite me out and call me three times a week and make sure that I wasn't getting homesick. When I started getting homesick, she'd invite me out more; and, when a guy I was dating broke it off after five months, she knew exactly what to say and what to do to make me feel better. Through her, I met other friends, and gradually came to make my own life here in Los Angeles, if not only from the people that she knew but from the confidence she gave me to get off my ass and out of my apartment and do something.

I honestly don't think I would have moved here without her, and I can't even imagine my life now without her in it. I wrote before about my bus theory and how there are people that are meant to get off and there are people that are meant to stay on, and if you told me back in 2001 that I was about to meet a lifer on Craig's List, I would have been surprised.

Now, because she has led me so well for so long, I am putting her in the driver's seat.

Happy birthday, Kris!

I have a feeling that you are going to have an amazing year.

And one more birthday wish (at least until Friday)

Happy birthday, Hilary!

Hilary is the type of friend that can't be summed up in a single blog post, although a single acronym says a lot: LYLAS. Back in the days when people used to write letters rather than email, we might have signed off with this closing, which was short for Love Ya Like a Sister.

I've known Hilary since first semester freshman year of college. We pledged the same sorority, went to Europe together, moved to New York, well, not together exactly, but at the same time, along with everyone else from college; and then a few years ago, she up and left for her hometown in Massachusetts because it was a better place to raise a kid, which she happened to have had practically when the rest of us weren't looking.

I keep telling her I'll meet her back in Mass one day, but until then, I will leave her with this reminder of Freshman year:

Happy birthday, Heather!

My high school friend Heather turns 30 years old today. She was in my grade, but, having been born in December, one of the youngest of our friends. It was hard on her when we were all getting our drivers licenses or turning 21, but now that she's the last to turn 30, we're all kind of jealous of the extra time she had to milk her 20's.

The above picture was taken at our friend Andra's house over the summer after our senior year of high school. We were in Andra's bedroom, on Andra's phone, inviting people to Andra's 18th birthday party, but Andra was still a few hundred miles away up at camp. Heather had a key to her house, and I think just that morning came up with the idea of throwing a party. We must have called Andra at camp, asked if she would come home, and, it being her night off, said, okay, I'll be there by 10! By the time she walked in the door that night, we had a house full of people there to celebrate her birthday.

This picture here is from last Thanksgiving when we got together with our larger group of high school friends. Heather has always been a social butterfly, and is an important thread in keeping us all in touch as much as we are. In fact, I'll be seeing the whole group next weekend, as I am heading home for Heather's official birthday party.

It's nice to know that all these years later, we still have so much to celebrate.

Happy birthday, Laura!

Today is my friend Laura's 30th birthday. I think she's handling it slightly better than I did, but that's fairly typical, as she is one of the most positive, optimistic people I know.

I've only known Laura for a little over a year, but I consider her one of my closest friends. I also consider her my first "official" L.A. friend - that is, someone I met and befriended out here and not from my previous life in New York. A mutual friend introduced us, and while so many times the two people being introduced never find any common ground greater than the person making the introduction (George to Elaine: So, uh, I guess I'll talk to you through Jerry, then...) Laura and I pretty much hit it off right away.

It was maybe only the second or third time we met that she picked me up to go to the beach. I was comiserating over a guy and had reprogrammed his name in my phone to a word that is unprintable here, and had been extremely proud of my ingenuity. I had told another friend earlier, and she didn't get it, saying if I had to reprogram his name to something that rhymed with "mindsucker", then I shouldn't be dating him at all. Oh, boo, I said, you are missing the point. But when I showed my phone to Laura, she burst out laughing and did the same thing to hers, to the guy whose name now rhymed with "casserole."

I immediately knew that we would get along.

To the most beautiful woman I know

Happy birthday, Mom!

When I was in first grade, my mom was doing a lot of photo shoots for her job as an art director. She had taken me on a few shoots and shot me for some ads, so I thought I had a good grasp on the concept. Then we had a career day in school, and the teacher asked us if anyone wanted to share what their parents did for a living. I proudly waved my hand and boasted in what I thought was proper advertising lingo, "My mom shoots people." The color drained from my teacher's face and I explained, "you know, like photo shoots." Duh.

When I was around 8 years old I loved to snuggle under the covers in my mother's bed on Friday nights. We'd watch Webster, Benson, Dallas, and if she happened to fall asleep, I'd stay up late and watch Falcon Crest. Once I stayed up really late and watched a long-forgotton Tom Cruise movie on HBO called Losin' It. It was about Tom Cruise's character taking off to Tijuana to, well, lose it, and I think it was probably the first time I saw naked breasts on television.

When I was around 10, she and her boyfriend at the time would stay up late on weekend nights and dance in the living room to Paul Simon. If I had been maybe two years older I would have counted the ways to die from embarrasment, but at 10, I just wanted to be included in on the fun. They always made sure that I was. (Once there was Kahlua involved).

When I was 16, I went to the DMV for my learner's permit. Nervous, I went to ask my mom for the millionth time if she remembered to bring my birth certificate. Except that instead of saying "certificate", I asked my mom in front of the entire DMV if she remembered to bring my birth control. (I was 16. I was not on birth control.) We burst out laughing and didn't stop practically until I left for college.

When I was 20 and wanted to drop a history course because it didn't work with my bustling social life, she agreed to pay for summer school and tell my grandparents that the class was simply to get a jump start on my senior year.

When I was 26 and suffering from over-achievement, my mom assured me that I would get through it, unscathed and better off. When I turned 28 and told her I was moving to LA, she lied through her teeth and told me that she wanted me to - because it would make me happy. Only it wasn't a lie because she always has wanted me to be happy, at whatever cost to her own disposition.

For years I thought my mom was the coolest person in the world. Then I went through puberty and, well, didn't. But sometime after that I grew up just a little and realized that my mother was a lot more than just "cool" and more than just "Moh-ohm!". She was a woman with complex feelings and choices and a personality and a life that existed outside of motherhood. It consistently thrills me to see a new side of her; to meet her new friends and hear what they love about her; or run into old friends and hear stories I may have been too young to hear wthe first time around. My relationship with my mother is constantly changing, evolving, growing. But throughout the years, one thing has remained the same:

I can't help but want to be just like her.

Happy Belated Birthday, Gram!

While lazing in the Central Park sun on Saturday, I turned to my friend Heather and sighed, "Can you believe it's already August 12th?" And as soon as the date came out of my mouth, I remembered: it was my paternal Grandmother's birthday.

August 12th is, coincidentally, the date that both my grandmothers were born, so I've never had trouble remembering. My mom's mom passed away eight years ago, though, so I don't buy birthday cards in pairs anymore. Let's be honest - I didn't buy a birthday card at all this year, which I really have to apologize for, because in 30 years I don't think that Grammy and Papa have ever missed one of mine. And I love receiving their cards because so often they are handwritten in better penmanship than my own, colorfully articulating everything from the flowers in bloom to the birds at the feeder to the blueberry pie they ate for dessert. Because my Grammy is a genius with both blueberries and pies, you can be assured there is always plenty to read about.

Growing up, I spent a week every summer at their house in Prince Edward Island, Canada. It was - and still is - a beautiful old house situated on sprawling lakefront property, but I dreaded the trips. For one, it took about 14 hours just to get there, and once I got there, I was convinced that the house was haunted. I haven't been back since I was 12, in part because I'm still not convinced that it isn't.

For every night that I would lay awake, gripped by my fear of the dark, though, I would wake in the morning to the brightest, most cheerful breakfast. Among her other specialties, Grammy has been known for making homemade doughnuts - the naturally-sweet, old-fashioned kind that don't need any frosting or Dunkin'-like accoutrements to melt in your mouth. I would wake up to the smell of the doughnuts baking (or frying? maybe...) and think how silly I was to have been scared the night before. Because in that first waking moment of the day, with the morning light shining through the open window and the smell of fresh baked sweetness wafting up from the kitchen, I couldn't have possibly felt any safer.

Here's hoping Gram's 84th birthday is just as sweet and safe.

Love,
Lori