Lessons From Madonna

How the Material Girl makes it easier to turn 40.

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I'm turning 40 in a week. But I have no plans … I was thinking of staying home and compulsively turning the lights on and off like Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction. What else is there to do? I don't want to be 40 but, as my dad says, what's the alternative? So I've decided to sulk. Really, this is not an elaborate public manipulation to get Steve Jobs to pity me and send me an iPad. Well, it's not just an elaborate manipulation, since an iPad would make me feel better. Seriously, the number 40 is sitting on my chest like a lead weight. Those of you who read my column regularly will know that I am extremely dramatic and unusually self-obsessed, even for a journalist. So trust me, I used to like nothing better than my birthday. Over the years, I've thrown parties in my own honor so elaborate, they make the Super Bowl halftime show look like amateur hour. People are still shaking their heads about my 27th at that bowling alley near NYU. There are drag shows that don't use that many feathers. So the fact that I'm willing to let this birthday go by without so much as a drink after work is a worrying sign that a nervous breakdown is looming. And I don't have time for a mental collapse—I have a toddler
by  RAINA KELLEY