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Today is my birthday, so I’m celebrating with a tug on some of the threads in my free-lance, crazy, patched-together, luxury-loving, fantasy-driven, town and country, backstage and front porch existence. And here I am without copy editors to make it all better.

What can I do for you? I’ll share my obsession with Hermès silk and silver and leather, and some newer designers who craft beautiful items to wear and carry, because my simple wardrobe provides a perfect palette for outrageous self-expression in the form of scarves and fun jewelry. I might tell you about some favorite bars and beaches in faraway places because, as a performer, I revel in imagination and atmosphere. I can help you understand and appreciate opera and other kinds of classical music, so you can impress colleagues and dates. Maybe later. First, let’s share a drink.

“Know your drink,” that classic bartender command, is useless for me. Drinking fuels my fantasy life, so I succumb to intriguing ingredients, gorgeous cocktail glasses, beautiful bottle labels, bartender challenges, and whimsy. I love the literary porn of exotic ingredient lists: luxardo triplum, boissiere sweet vermouth, cumin, horchata, mionetto brut. I want to set the words to music and sing them in a sultry voice.

I’ve been drinking long enough to remember rum and coke, 7 and 7, and fruity concoctions that made my teeth hurt. For awhile “my drink” was vodka and grapefruit juice, before I even knew it was called a Greyhound, or that salting the rim of the glass made it an even more delectable Salty Dog. I drank Long Island Iced Teas in college, because I could. Now I know there are more imaginative ways to get wasted quickly and I am more fussy about passing out on sticky couches.

Now “my drink” changes with the weather, the time of day, and my mood (either the one I’m in or the one I’m aiming for). I love beer at a ballgame and wine on the terrace. But cocktails offer transport. To yachts in the Mediterranean. To a croquet game observed from a wisteria-draped porch. To a chic urban penthouse. Are you coming along?