Happy Birthday to Me!!

Today is my birthday.

I am 31-which as I type that seems unrecognizably older than how I feel. And also younger than I feel, and also exactly right.

I feel hardly more than a teenager really, just old enough to drink. I feel fresh and inspired. But I also feel the fear that comes from living and being jaded paralyzing that inspiration, as I fret that I have waited too long to start what I want to do. Even as my new motto for my own art is two lines of a much longer manifesto, "Begin anywhere; don't be cool." And I feel as if I am what I am, the product of exactly the life I have lived at this point.

I am lucky to be healthy and safe and secure in a time when I know that isn't exactly true of many people across the world and many people of my own acquaintance and in my very own city.

I am also lucky to be at a turning point in my life that is actually swinging the good way on the pendulum. This will be a very good birthday, and I think 31 should shape up to be a wonderful year.

(Plus tonight I get dinner at Graham Elliot who charms me on top chef masters every season).