The Big Green House

Tuesday, December 17, 2002

 

When I�m 64

A possible cause for the writing lock-up: my impending 42nd birthday. It occurred to me today that, as of Sunday, it will have been 21 years since I turned 21 years old.

Read that sentence again.

Yes. I�ve been drinking legally now for as long as it took for me to begin drinking legally in the first place. Or, in other words, I AM REALLY F***ING OLD! (And apparently becoming somewhat delicate in my language; I used to spell out �fucking�, rather than resorting to those coy little asterisks. Next up: such colorful phrases as �dag nabbit�, �Jiminy Cricket�, and �for the love of cake�.) (Wait, I already use that last one. It�s progressing faster than I�d anticipated.)

I don�t feel particularly old. Even though I�m pressing onward into middle age, I�m every bit as immature as I was 21 years ago � I just hide it better now. True, I have a little trouble with my knees every now and again (especially in cold weather), but that runs in the family. Well, it hobbles in the family, anyway. My hairline starts a little further north than it used to, and I�m told that there�s the beginning of a bald spot in back. (Science Girl denies this, but then she would.) No big deal. Really. OK, I�ve priced Rogaine at the drug store, but screw it. It�s gonna do what it�s gonna do. And doubly so with the gray hairs; no Grecian Formula for me, thank you very much.

Birthdays used to be barely a blip on my radar. I paid them very little mind at all during my twenties, aside from the famous 21st. I spent the night drinking in the bar I�d been going to for the previous six months. The bartender who�d been serving me all that time turned several shades of green when he found out which birthday I was celebrating that night.

Turning 30 was really difficult for me, however, as there were a lot of deeply unpleasant things going on in my life at that particular time in addition to the �milestone�. The less said about that particular birthday the better. 40, on the other hand, was a snap. Could have done it standing on my head, provided I�d gotten a little help & a wall to lean against. Science Girl & I went to see Big Star, Death Cab for Cutie, and The Posies at the Showbox, which was a lot of fun even though Alex Chilton seemed to be phoning in his performance at times.

And now? We�ll probably go out for dinner or something, I suppose. My life is going very well at the moment - wonderful fianc�, good dog (most of the time), nice place to live - so why the wig-out all of a sudden? Why is forty-two looming and squatting on the horizon like a big hairy spider*?

*To get the full effect of that image, you need to know that I am deathly afraid of spiders.

bmarkey 12/17/2002 08:03:00 PM