Not The Philadelphia Story

I'm 48. That's a really weird thing to say. Ask anyone who's 48 and they'll probably say, "I'm forty-eight? God, that's weird." My daughter, an only child, goes to college this fall. Then my partner, Stan, and I will move from L.A., where I've lived almost my whole life, to New York.

I feel like I'm at this odd midway point, but I don't know how to assess what I'm seeing behind me or in front of me. I wanted to call this blog Halfway There, which felt both optimistic and fatalistic at the same time. Like my life is half over—or it's only half over. See? Hopeful! The name was taken, but that halfway-transitional-where-am-I sense is probably what will drive the posts on this blog. (And can I just mention in passing how odd and egotistical it feels to be writing a BLOG? For pete's sake, who cares? Discuss.)

So, why Katharine Hepburn? Because she's the anti-me. As a teenager, I worshiped what I saw as her independence, her willfulness, her seeming lack of care for what anyone thought or expected of her. She frolicked nude in a fountain at Bryn Mawr. This was all very not me. But I wished it were. (We're leaving aside here her slavish, self-denying devotion to Spencer Tracy; nevermind that.) She was the role model I measured myself against but never lived up to. But maybe I still can. I'm only 48.