xtcian

6/26/02 Michelle celebrated her 30th

6/26/02

Michelle celebrated her 30th birthday tonight, making yesterday the last day the Williams kids (at least this generation) will be in their 20s. That's only a big deal to those of us keeping count of such things, and I'd bet neither Kent or Steve care, having said goodbye to their thirties 3 or 4 years ago. Being in one's twenties, however, was a pretty big deal to me, as I ended up writing about it in two books, countless magazines, and even wrote a movie whose protagonist is writing his thesis on the "Ten Archetypes of Americans in their 20s."

All of which is deliciously ironic, since I don't feel like it was a very good decade in my life. Sure, the beginning was great, being at Carolina and dating as many Pi Phis as I could carry and we had some life-affirming times at both the Purple and Pink Houses – but my relationships with women and my knack for self-sabotage pretty much color that decade for me as pretty clueless. In one of my favorite UNC classes ever, Dr. Richard Lucas demanded that we all sow our wild oats, be as insane and careless as possible, fuck up our lives in the name of spontaneity NOW before we got into our 30s. He said that not to do so would cause irreparable damage. I thought he was being a bit extreme, but I can safely say from this vantage point that every stupid thing I did in my 20s helped me become a better person in my 30s.

Yeah, but you're in therapy and on Celexa for being so anxiety-ridden and miserable!

True, but I also made a feature film, I'm living in the best town in the world, and I'm getting married to one of the greatest women in North America. There is absolutely no way I would have had the gumption or the self-trust to commit myself to Tessa if I hadn't been shown the Wasteland that is Other Women. I thank God for all of my Bad Relationships, because they have trulie Bestowed upon Me the Abillitie and Wisdome to Knowe the Difference.

Michelle holds forth at the nicely-furnished but poorly-run Bona Fides restaurant Tessa and I actually left without paying after waiting over an hour for our food