From over here, and let me tell you, this is the voice of experience speaking, 31 seems a whole lot like 30 so far.

Saturday morning – this was after the birthday song from the kid, after unwrapping the New Yorker print from CC, after receiving word of the New Yorker subscription from Olive – (“Am I so predictable?” I asked Marc later, explaining the bounty of New Yorker–related gifts. “But did they give you the same thing from the New Yorker?” he said. “Like the same cartoon?” I said. “No.” “Then,” he said, “I think you’re OK.”) –

Saturday morning we tried to find a bar to gather friends in. Saturday morning! In Soho! For Saturday night! We sure like a challenge, here in ye olde householde. One after the other, a host of helpful barpeople smiled their “no”s down the phone.

We finally remembered a bar we’d walked by several times in Seven Dials. “Meh,” I said, looking up its number online, “this review says ‘cool, chic and sophisticated’.” “Ya,” Olive said, “you are not cool, chic and sophisticated.” This is the man I married, folks. Right here. Roll up, roll up. We called them anyway, just to see if they’d have room for us. They did. “Can I call you back?” Olive said. He hung up and said, “What kind of bar is free to take a group of 12 on a Saturday night?”



We figured we’d take our chances at Freud instead, a small basement bar with a long cocktails list and a no-reservation policy. Six-thirty Saturday evening, downstairs, behind the creeping-ivy banisters, all the seats were taken. The long bench against the wall – taken. The low, battered stools, their paint scratched and peeling – taken. “I wonder,” I mused, “if we have made the wrong decision,” and in my mind I saw the bar we didn’t pick, all bright white and silver, all cool, chic and sophisticated, with room for a group of 12 on a Saturday night. Aged 31, I had no time for regrets. We lunged for two stools. We perched. We bided our time.

The lights were low, and the music hot. The girls were in diamond-print stockings and laced-up heels, they were in T-shirts and tulip-shaped skirts, they were in striped sweaters and pink heels, they were dressed up and dressed down and sometimes they jiggled their shoulders to the beat. One of these girls was me. The boys leaned back and chatted. They made the girls laugh. The lights were low. The music was hot. One of the bartenders was a small man with a large head of hair.

Just as the first of our posse showed up, Dan and Nai and Elaine searching us over the heads and shoulders, two tables opened up. This is the magic of a birthday night – room for all, mojitos cold and sweet, and a large jar of truffles tied with a purple ribbon.