Last weekend I turned 31 years old.

I waffled on how to spend my birthday and didn’t make any concrete plans until four days before. It ended up being perfect, as I spent most of March 22nd with good friends eating good food. It was a lovely counterpoint celebration to last year’s big bash for my 30th.

Another milestone passed last week — it’s been exactly two years since I departed LAX for the Cook Islands, kicking off a 9-month round-the-world adventure and then a sequel trip to Africa. It’s been an incredibly fulfilling journey and I’m so glad I made the leap. Thank you all for following along!

Looking back at this fresh-faced 29-year-old Erica reminds me of a Garfunkel and Oates song called 29/31, which I saw them perform at UCB many years ago:

Funny, right? I’m glad I don’t identify with it… yet.

The best part about celebrating my birthday in Los Angeles is getting to share the weekend with my good friend Tamar, whose birthday is the day before mine. Her 31st party was Saturday night at The Morrison in Atwater Village followed by a visit to The Griffin down the street — both places are great. I wish I’d taken more photos since all of our friends were gathered and I didn’t get shots of everyone.

The birthday girls:

Here’s Tamar with our friends Jeremy and Daniel:

Here’s the bread pudding that was set down in front of Tamar… I had many bites and it was delicious.

The next morning was the holy day of March 22nd, not because it’s the date of my own birth but because I share it with musical theater gods Stephen Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber… the fact that our birthdays coincide makes this theater nerd ecstatically happy.

I met up with friends at Republic of Pie in North Hollywood for breakfast.

The best part of the morning was visiting with Allison, Craig, and Jenny!

I tried the Nutella latte, which is made with hazelnut milk (daily-free like almond milk).

After coffee we wandered around the NoHo Arts District where the bicycling event Ciclavia was happening — major streets in the area were closed to traffic so that cyclists could ride up and down Lankershim and Ventura Blvd.

We walked by Idle Hour, a newly restored barrel building that had been in disrepair since the 1980s.

Thank you for kicking off my birthday, friends!

Next stop: Glendale.

I met up with another group of friends for lunch at Din Tai Fung, a popular dumpling restaurant I hadn’t been to before. We put our names on the wait list and walked around the Americana, a large outdoor upscale mall.

Sommer, Grace, Tamar, and yours truly:

We ducked into a boutique candy shop called Sugarfina to admire their goodies and try a free sample.

An hour later the whole group met up at Din Tai Fung for a giant order of noodles, dumplings, crispy veggies, and steamed buns. SO GOOD.

Here’s the gang — Tammie, Eva, Bryan, Sommer, Grace, Tamar, and me. A giant THANK YOU for celebrating with me, friends!

The good times kept on rolling… after stopping home to rest and reply to dozens of very kind Facebook birthday greetings, I met up with Kelley & Irving for dinner. We ordered my favorite meal in Los Angeles — deep dish pizza from Masa of Echo Park. They’d never had Masa before and I was as delighted to watch them try it as I was to eat it again. I can only manage two slices before I’m completely stuffed, and it was so worth it.

Their daughter stayed up for the fun! She is such a sweetheart.

Kelley & Irving surprised me with Masa’s bread pudding for dessert. As stuffed as I was from all of the day’s goodies, I had to dig in — this dessert is legen… wait for it… dary.

Cheers to 31!

I could not be happier than where I am in life right now. Yes, there is uncertainty about the future — where am I going professionally? Personally? What darkness and lightness lies ahead as I grow older? A lot is up in the air, but the journey is all mine and I wouldn’t trade it with anyone else. Enough random coincidences happen on a regular basis that I’m convinced the universe has me right where I’m supposed to be. So I will keep kicking the ball down the path, taking each new stretch of life as it comes. This is 31 and I am very happy to be here.