Events encompassing honeymoon sex in 1974 Yokohama and the purchase of really good resume paper have converged in my becoming both thirty years old and a Big Girl, all in one week.

A Big Girl, in my family’s parlance, is a girl with a job so respectable that it requires Big Girl clothes—things that aren’t stained, for example. And probably a bra. I’ve just acquired a Big Girl job that, when I told her all about it, made my mother pant hard and declare, "Well, it’s about time."

And, 15 seconds later, "…that an employer realized how much you’re worth, I mean."

And, half-a-second later, "You know this means you’ll have to get nice clothes."

(An echo from the background: "Tell Em Grandmom says she needs to get nice clothes!").

I do have nice clothes. I wore them to the interview. I wore them to the second interview. Yes, it was the same outfit, but five days passed in between—and some laundering went on (the pants).

Why do people assume that, because one has dressed every day for twelve years in a fashion at once recalling a messier Ellen and Stanley Kowalski, one does not understand the finer points of style, the subtle touches?

I even thought to wear earrings to the interviews, having read once that women in earrings have better chances of getting Big Girl jobs. As I’ve yet to see any data on the interview coups of gals with their nethers pierced, I decided it was best not to rest (or squirm) on my laurels.

I hadn’t worn earrings for years, though, so it took a mighty effort to line up a borrowed pair’s posts with my half-closed, recalcitrant holes. It was painful and awkward and, I imagine, not altogether unlike that honeymoon sex in 1974 Yokohama.

Lobes throbbing but dazzlingly employable, I took five to hunt down my bra, ten more to untangle its Mobius-strip madness and rig the thing onto my chest.

It’s my sole bra. The rest I tossed in college, not onto a bonfire but onto a stage where a freshman friend was making his stand-up debut. I wanted to give him that boost rock stars get when weepy teens throw their dainties onstage. (Unimpressed, Evan picked up a bra, sniffed, and said, "If it’s not Mrs. Paul’s, throw it back.")

Circumstances were reversed when I acquired my current bra two years ago: this time, the lingerie was lobbed at me.

It was 11:45 PM in rural Virginia. On the way back to our nowhere-hotel from a friend’s rehearsal dinner in nowhere’s outskirts, my partner was seized with the conviction that I could not possibly wear what I’d planned to the next morning’s wedding without a bra.

Miraculously, we found a K-Mart that closed at midnight. I dashed to the dressing room; Mel raced to the racks, and was soon propelling bras over my door with all the fervor of a Price Is Right contestant.

Was I a 34? A 36? Oh, who knew? It had been so long. Nudes, whites, pastels pelted my strap-averse shoulders…I wailed like a preteen tomboy out with her mom.

As she was that long night, Mel continues to be an intrepid and helpful partner. She applied salve to my tender, Big Girl ears after both interviews. And it is she, in part, that is making it so easy for me to turn thirty. She is doing this by—very helpfully—being forty-two.

Chinese horoscope-wise, we were both born in the Year of the Tiger. Mel was born in the Year of the Tiger, and then, after the Years of the Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Ram, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, Boar, Rat, and Ox had passed, I was born in the Year of the Tiger. Truly, I think our both being Tigers has brought us closer together, especially when I don’t mention the rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, ram, monkey, rooster, dog, boar, rat, and ox that lie between us.

And when she doesn’t razz me for being made in Japan.