Birthdays, Lists, and Dolphins.

Last year at this time, I was closing in on forty. It felt like a big deal. It felt…kinda crappy, actually. Forty’s one of those “milestone” birthdays that you think about when you’re younger and imagine the kind of person you’ll be. (Spoiler alert for you younger folks: you’ll be EXACTLY THE SAME PERSON, but hopefully with better fashion sense and a lowered tolerance for bullshit.)

What wasn’t helping me feel better about reaching this so-called milestone were the “things to have done by the time you’re 21/25/30/40” checklists and the ever-popular “bucket lists.” (God, I hate that phrase. I don’t like the word bucket for starters, and it seems either weirdly arrogant; like you have any say in when you’re going to die, or profoundly sad; like you’re a kid in the Make-A-Wish Foundation program.)

Anyway! A year has gone by since then, and it turned out that forty wasn’t such a big deal after all. I’m still awesome, and I’m still stumbling around with no idea what the hell I’m doing most of the time. Business as usual.

I'm really sorry you had to see this. Also, it's not true.

So I say we dispense with those other lifelong-to-do lists entirely. All they do is make you feel bad for whatever supposedly important/magical things you haven’t achieved yet:

• “Have a substantial nest egg.” Oh shit, I must be a terrible person to not have a pile of money at my age.
• “Swim with dolphins.” Um, okay, but I think I’d rather just leave them alone.
• “Have a one-night stand?” ONE!? Is this even a thing?
• “Ride a rollercoaster." Who gives a shit?
• “Buy a Birkin/Rolex/diamond ring/pair of Manolos.” Oh, go piss up a rope.

"God, get off me, bitch!"

Rather than chart what other people should do by the time they’re any age, I suggest you look at your birthday this year as an opportunity to look back over all the great and interesting things you’ve accomplished in your life so far. It’s infinitely more random and rewarding. One size does not fit all (especially when it comes to swimming with dolphins), so write down your own unique and amazing story.

Here’s mine. It only took a few minutes. I’m sure there are loads of wonderful things I forgot to include, but maybe I’ll remember them next year.

Things I’ve done by 41

• Forgot most of everything that seemed like a huge deal in high school

• Got married

• Had a kid who turned out just swell

• Got divorced

• Buried a parent

• Got married again

• Went on welfare

• Got off welfare

• Sowed my wild oats

• Ran a small business

• Ran that business into the ground

• Went back to shcool

• Figured out my “dream job”

• Figured out that my “dream job” is actually the hardest job of all

• Amassed an impressive collection of abdominal scars

• Still wear a bikini

• Learned how to cook some nice things

• Set a kitchen on fire

• Made some terrifically, jaw-droppingly ill-advised decisions

• Gave my heart away to people who didn’t deserve it

• Got it back again

• Felt the depths of depression and despair

• Went into therapy

• Caught a fish and ate it

• Wrote and published two books

• Watched a beloved friend give birth

• Discovered I know things that people want to learn

• Started sharing those things

• Lived half my life with a weird autoimmune disorder and never (okay, hardly ever) let it stop it from doing anything awesome

• Learned to appreciate scotch

• Learned to apply false eyelashes

• Spent two weeks in relative solitude and didn’t go crazy

• Got comfortable with the idea that I don’t know everything, won’t ever know everything, and that other people might not feel exactly the way I do about everything

• Laughed loudly and often

• Loved my friends and my family more than I could ever tell them

• Realized how much they love me back

• Began to realize I deserve it. 

So...what's on your list?

On the Street

Today started badly, with that particular assortment of missed appointments and frayed nerves and thwarted plans that doesn’t really seem like that big a deal until you’ve been out of the house for a few hours and have achieved absolutely nothing, then suddenly you’re standing in a coffee shop and feel like crying because the poor counter girl got your order wrong.

But things got better when Rob and I took in a matinee. Things nearly always look better after an afternoon at the movies, certainly, but today we saw Bill Cunningham New York, and it restored my faith in humanity.

If you don’t know who Bill Cunningham is, read his Wikipedia entry or watch a few of his wonderful "On the Street" videos for the New York Times. Then go see the film. It doesn’t matter if you give a toss about photography, or fashion, or anything, because even though Bill’s made a career of taking pictures of clothes, it’s about so much more than that.

This is a film about art, and about loving beauty. It’s a film about a monastic devotion to one’s work, to the exclusion of everything else. It’s about principles and self-respect and stubbornness and possibly loneliness. And yes, it’s about the joys of fashion.

One of the many things that struck me about this documentary is that it’s populated by old people. I like seeing and hearing from grown-ups in their seventies, eighties, and nineties. These are people who’ve lived—and continue to live—amazingly rich and fascinating lives. When I watch television (or consume any mass culture, really), all I see are the very young. It’s easy to forget that old people exist at all, much less remember that they’re doing cool stuff and that they have things to share with us. What could a rich twenty-two-year-old celebrity, compared to these individuals, possibly have to say about the world?

Another thing that intrigued me was seeing someone still shooting rolls of film. He's probably the only guy at the Times who has to go and pick up his negatives, then painstakingly go through all those images to select the ones to run in his columns, then have them scanned, then pull up a chair beside John, his layout guy, and argue about what should go where (the source of some of the movie's funniest moments). I guess it's a testament to how far and how fast technology has come that I find this process so deliciously old-fashioned.

There’s so much to enjoy about this lovely movie, and so much to talk about, but I just hope you’ll go and see it. Bill Cunningham New York is as charming, confounding, and delightful as the man it follows. “We all get dressed for Bill,” says American Vogue editor Anna Wintour in the film, and even though I don’t live anywhere near New York or Paris, I want to get dressed for Bill too.

Here's the trailer--now go!