Monday, September 19, 2011

Pinky Blue and Being 40...



Kermit The Frog...gotta love this song. Makes me want to do something. Anything. Something other than listen to this song.

A common theme that runs through all of my blogs is a sense of humor, at least in my mind, a slight sense of humor, tinged with the fact that I think I am becoming more and more human everyday - and less and less adult about things - no really, if you thought I could not fall any deeper into a sense of childishness, I have, in more ways than one...I am trying like hell to keep my composure these days - mostly by ignoring the wantoness to critique myself, and to actually listen to those SparkPeople blog reminders that I get sent via emaill - it is ironic that it has been a month since I posted, well, not that ironic, I have been pretty lazy about writing, I do write a greeting card once a week - but I don't think that is going to strengthen my chances any of becoming a better writer - but the fact that I actually write - well, I suppose that makes me a writer in the slackest sense of the term - I don't particularly like the term "blogger" just as much as I don't like the term "mergers and acquisitions guy" - but I guess they both go hand in hand. I really do wonder how folks like Hemingway and Kerouac and Hunter Thompson, and Burroughs were able to make a living whilst they wrote and created new things on paper - (not so much Burroughs, I think he was set by his adding machine company - I don't really know the history of that one all that much, other than to know that I liked his stark and realistic view on the world)...did they ever have real jobs that kept them occupied or did they just figure out a way to stay cutting edge enough to deal with the era equivalent of Ramen Noodle. Don't know. Probably worth reading about someday. Anyway, I am locked out of my work computer, it appears that I tried to type the password eleven too many times, so that limits my ability to do anymore financially viable work, and now I can let the synapses fire on putting this stuff together. Lucky you!

Pinky Blue - that is the way would describe the sky tonight - I am pretty sure that I am somewhere over Arizona or New Mexico - I can see the canyons down below and the sky runs pink right into the orange of the desert floor, and slowly transitions into a light blue - the sun is setting - so I know it must be around six or seven on the west coast, and I just hope the traffic is caml before I hit the Los Angeles freeways for an hour long (with any luck) drive into the beautiful republican suburb of Claremont - for a stop at the Trader Joe's for a six pack of all natural diet soda and some toasted flax spread....boy I can really ruin a half way decent description - so back to Pinky Blue - I am 100% sure where I learned that term. I am 100% sure who I learned it from. When the sky is that color, the world is a better place - granted the pinky part is pollution, but a slight combination of both is nice - it is calming, soft like the few clouds that are out there, relaxing, and makes the sunset that much better to enjoy. It makes the flight pleasnt as well - sitting at my window seat looking for shapes in the clouds, imagining, not worrying for just a few minutes, actually forced to take a break and just look out the window - it is a nice break. Not quite as nice as sitting on the deck at Rory's in Edmonds having a cold beer watching the sun go down over the Kingston Ferry, but a nice break just the same. I read somewhere that the strongest sense of memory is smell, but I think visually watching something brings deja vu - I can still feel the cold air of the first pinky blue sky, and can smell the salt air off of the Puget Sound - just by looking out of a 12" x 6" airplane window hurling through the air at 500 miles per hour.

I turned 40 a few weeks ago - and ended up in New Orleans with my best friends - and great memories were created, and a few not so great ones - but for the most part, I think I was on pretty good behavior 70% of the time, and only managed to piss off everyone around me once, my girlfriend twice, and only borrow money once. For me, that's pretty damn good. Not great, not anything that I am proud of, but it looks like it could have been worse - I have a photo of me with a plastic penis from a set of beads resting peacefully in my intoxicated mouth - and that about sums up me welcoming forty into my reality - the funny thing is that I don't feel the forty that I hear about all of the time - I know that men are supposed to be great by this time in their lives, and if they have not accomplished anything by now, they probably will not accomplish anything going forward, that your thirties are the time to establish yourself in this world as one of the ones on top, or just the guy who tried really really hard, or who did not try at all - good thing is that I tried really really hard - so if trying is worth anything, then I should get a consolation prize. There is nothing different about being 40 - it is the same as being 39 - I cannot say if it is the same as being 41, have not gone that route yet, but I can say that over time, my outlook has slowly changed - some by necessity, some by reality, some by sheer force of will - I mean I can no longer go out until six am and expect to be at work on time. I can no longer just decide to run a 5K or 10K after two weeks of training without some severe physical consequences. I cannot say "fuck it" and walk off of a job knowing that there is probably a future out there with someone else. I worry about enough money to retire, and not have to live with my children. I guess those are mature thoughts - more mature than I would chalk my average thought pattern over the course of my life to be, but that seems to be the only thing that has really changed. I mean now, I can get Testosterone treatment and use Rogaine, and if necessary, can go in a get one of those miracle lift facelifts that only require five days of healing - and then have that followed up by a rousing microdermabrasion session and a little liposuction. Hell, why should I look 40 when I feel 30? Someone asked me if I had the chance to go it again - what would I redo? Gamble less, save more, drink more, travel more, spend more time with my kids, never start smoking, go to a top twenty B-school. Sure, there are lots of things I would change, but seeing on average that I have about 25 to 41 years left to live, I still have a pretty good chance that I can get that stuff done (knock on wood) - I thought 40 would be this monumental achievement, and really, for those of you about to hit it, or worried about it - don't - the only thing that really happened for me is now I am in a protected class and can claim age discrimination - that's about it. I also can go to the doctor and realistically ask him to stick his finger up my ass to see if I am okay. That's a big thing, some would think a bonus. Really, the changes are more gradual - over the course of the past ten years, things changed really slowly, with exception to the kids, things just kind of stroll along - the body changes, the mind changes, the situation changes, the job changes, the pay changes, but it all happens over the course of the past ten years- not much else to say about turning 40. It happened. Voila. I made it. Am I where I want to be? I am where I am - and I got here by being who I am - that can be good, or mediocre, or just plain bad, but I am here. So that is pretty heavy - done thinking on that one...without further adieu and no segway I introduce to you the top ten things about being 40...

1. People call you sir alot. Not because you deserve it, or have earned it, just because you look fucking old, and that's what they are supposed to do when you look that fucking old.

2. Foods like Activia and Olives magically appear in your icebox. You don't necessarily like that shit, or even want to eat it, but occassionally your body needs active yogurt cultures, or craves nasty olives that have been in your icebox for a year.

3. Your medicine cabinet smells like a giant multivitamin. I have to hold my breath every time I open my medicine cabinet - I swear it is like sticking you nose in a Flintstones Chewable bottle and inhaling - maybe that would be better if you could huff your vitamins instead of taking the "Mens Multipack" - that consists of about 83 pills that are coated with adhesive so you can dry heave and hack like a cat struggling on a furball as you try to choke the damn things down. Of course, you do this right after you get out of the shower, so you will be found dead naked, wet, and with a mouth full of pills.

4. You cannot lift your children anymore. Not that you cannot physically lift them once - you probably can do it once - it is just that the rest of the day will be consumed by rubbing ben-gay and dosing up on flexoril trying to escape the fact that your lower spine was ground into dust in your thirties when you thought marathon running was really cool.

5. You lose the ability to be fashionable. How many 40 year olds do you see wearing those louvered sunglasses - very few - and those that you do see wearing those sunglasses are the ones you ask for extra weed from. I think the most fashionable thing in my wardrobe is my underwear - and that's because Michael Jordan pitches them, everything else just makes me look really white and really old.

6. Stairs in the dark are your enemy. No more night vision - I don't care if you have shoved carrots up your ass, drink a gallon of beta carotene juice a day, and have had cornea implants done just because - you can no longer see for shit in the dark. God forbid you are in the dark, and then someone turns the lights on - they might as well set off a flash grenade as you bounce around screaming expletives - same for the stairs - count the stairs, because you will need to know how many there are - it is a real bitch when you think there are 16 and there are actually 18 - those last two make a large amount of noise as your knees collapse underneath you.

7. You get hairy ears. Yup, It is true. If I were to let my ear and nose hair grow, I could mimic that chupacabra kid and become a professional wrestler or sideshow attraction. It is a cruel joke that is played on us - because you can try like hell to get hair to grow on your head - no dice - you are fucked, and it will grow on your ears and your nose. Sorry. So when your kids ask you why you are shaving your ears and sticking that thing in your nose, tell them because you have bad genes, and that since they dont have either type of hair, they are probably going to look like Uncle Joe who had three inch hair on his back.

8. Forget Dairy. Forget it completely. At 40, a magical switch goes off in your body that says you are way too old to have milk, ice cream, or anything else that may contain traces of milk byproducts. You don't have to listen to me now, but after three days of the shits, massive heartburn, and the desire to eat chalky substances to calm your stomach, you will listen. Yes young Skywalker, you will listen.

9. 9:00 PM bedtimes suddenly become AWESOME!!! - To hell with Jay Leno - you can TiVo that crap - you only watch it for the monologue anyway.

10. Every movie you watched when you were a kid has no applicability or draw for your children. In fact, most of them are classics. Put a ten year old and a 13 year old in front of Goonies - and you prove this point - better yet, try Karate Kid, or The Last Starfighter - and all I hear about are the crappy special effects and the funny hairstyles and the bright clothes people used to wear back then.

Those are my top ten. I think when you turn 50, you snore obnoxiously loud like the guy next to me on the airplane, but I already do that, so that is one less thing to keep on the list - Thanks everyone for making the first 40 what they were - without each of you, I would probaby be less bitter, slightly less cynical, more successful, and much better looking - but hell, I would have died twenty years ago.... Until next time, George