Cuarenta y tres...

That is how old I'll be tomorrow. 43!

I also recently realized that it's now been 25 years since I graduated from high school (!!) and 20 since college (yes, I was on the 5-year plan, as I took a year off to work in the middle).

Cliches are cliches for a reason: time really does fly. And when I see my friends who've been my friends for all these years, it sure doesn't seem like that much time has passed. We still seem like the goofy teenagers we were. I suspect we'll feel that way forever. With any luck.

For a change, I'm not sweating the increase in age this year, because sooooo much has changed in my life since my last birthday. New job, new hobby, new experiences. I'm in better shape, in every sense of the word.

I don't even hate this picture taken of me (and my friend Jennifer) at a show the other night. That's new, too.

I'll be spending the big day at that new job and then at that new hobby. I did my celebrating in New York (a little too much, in fact... but more on that later).

I did have a weird age-related moment recently, though: I was at my Starbucks, where all the young baristas know me by name. In conversation with one, I used the phrase, "...'cause that's how I roll," and he laughed uproariously, like it was the funniest thing he'd ever heard.

It turns out, it was the funniest thing he'd ever heard coming out of the mouth of someone my age. Because he then asked me, "Do you have kids our age?"

Now it was time for me to bust out with a big laugh, because not only did I think these young'uns were a little older than they are (as it happens, they're all late teens/early 20s - I was thinking mid-to-late 20's), but also because I COULD conceivably be their mother.

Naw, I said. I'm still a kid myself.

And here's hoping I always feel that way.