Late Twenties!

Sadly, I remember very well a time when all I wanted was to be out of my early twenties, so people would take me seriously. (Isn't that hilarious? Like, truly?) Actually, most of my New York girlfriends felt sort of similarly. We didn't want to have to wait until we were older to have the things we were striving so hard for every day in New York. 

So on my 24th birthday (half a decade ago) at (still) the most beautiful bar I have ever been to, the Stanton Social, we invented our battle cry: MID- TWENTIIIIIIIES!!  (There was an arm thing that went with it. You maybe had to be there.) We kept doing that for years, on everyone's birthdays. It was our empowerment mantra. 

Which is why, though I have so many concrete amazing little encapsulated kernals of memories involving Alyson Campbell (indeed, my New York experience started and ended with the girls of 4th & B) these memories tend to coagulate around birthdays. 

I remember when we surprised her for her 24th at her office. We made every screen saver in the office this big adorable picture of her and we told her to dress up and didn't tell her where we were taking her. And where we took her was what I thought was the only Scottish Bar in NYC (at the time, it actually might have been.) The Campbell Apartment. (Actually, the other most beautiful bar I've ever been to.) We were all pretty broke at the time, but we splurged on like $15 cocktails and felt... like grown ups. 

Which, of course, Aly always has been. She's like a rock. Probably the most dependable person I know. But maybe, a fuzzy rock? Because she's also one of the softest, most caring people currently living on the Earth. 

I mean, this girl moved to NYC from Bedford, Nova Scotia to work in music PR, and when she realized most people in the industry were flakes, she just started her own firm. At 23  years old! (Welsh readers, she's the publicist of the Welsh National Assembly. No joke.) And she's worked for herself ever since. She works harder than anyone I know. She cares about her work more than anyone I know. And never once has it ever even occurred to me that she would do anything other than what she said she would do. 

Today is her birthday. And do you know what she's doing today? Helping me get press for our show in Houston! She's a saint! Then, she's headed to this side of the pond for a journey through her ancestral home and a 4th & B girls adventure in Dublin and Spain. I know there will be wine and sunny roof terraces and all-night soul chats. I know I'll end up feeling more worthy of the ground I stand on, worthy of the enormously lucky life I lead, because she's even good at publicizing me to me. I've never not felt really loved in her presence. 

She's my publicist and my bestie. But she also makes me want to be HER publicist. I just want to beat the drum so that everyone in the world knows how rad Alyson Campbell is.

Ladies, we don't have to wait anymore. We're on our World Tour. And I can't wait to romp around Europe with her:  now, and into the future, when we'll be calling MID- SEVENTIES through the streets of New York, Madrid, Edinburgh, Dublin, or wherever the hell else we decide to go. Because I'm pretty sure nothing could stop us.