Twenty-Three, Mostly Intact

A few months ago I defended Lindsay Lohan in print, at some length, at a moment when everyone else was lining up to watch her bottom out. The scandals, the drinking, the paparazzi photos from club exits where she’d apparently misplaced her underwear. I thought she deserved better than the coordinated pile-on. I still think that.

Since then she’s actually held it together, which is genuinely good news and also, if I’m being honest, slightly less interesting to write about. No new substance disasters. The tabloid apparatus has moved on to other targets. She’s become boring in the best possible sense—quietly functional, twenty-three years old, no longer the designated wreck of the entertainment cycle.

So: happy birthday, Lindsay. Don’t drink too much, don’t snort too much, and keep wearing underwear—not for the tabloids, but because someone with your particular film history deserves a next chapter that isn’t narrated entirely by a zoom lens at a club exit. I’m proud of you, even if you’ve made this considerably harder to write about.