Happy Birthday. Yeah, Whatever.

It's official. I am now an old fogey.

41. An odd age; it shows that I'm already over the hill (yes, I know life expectancy is far older nowadays, but anyhoo...) plus a year. It's as if as you got oldr you didn;t have enough to worryt about, so God made it so Man created labels to ages, along with everything else.

At 30, I was (in a general sense) still considered vital and socially acceptable to the MTV generation. But once I hit 40, it was as if a switch was flipped. Suddenly, I noticed the twinges and pinching flashes of pain throughout different parts of my body. Not as if they happened overnight, but now they were more noticeable, more prominent. I don't bend down and up as sprightly as before. I find myself sitting down more often. And, worst of all....

The music nowadays is too damn loud and it doesn't have the soul it had back in the good old days. You know; the '80s.

I'm one of those guys that most people nowadays will simply call "sir", even if they're not in the fast food or retail industry; just in passing. I'm the guy that has people repeat themselves, even if I'd heard them cleary the first time - you know, just to keep the conversation going. And I'm the guy who, if I happen to screw something up, they'll let me off the hook because...you know..."he's old".

And what's worse than all this? I find myself wondering what home my kids are going to put me in.

...my kids are 11 and 8.

So yeah, I'm 41 today. Big whoop-de-doo. No party. No presents (my wife got me a gift card to get a movie or two, my kids sang to me, that kinda thing). No friends calling to grant well-wishings. Just another day. The same.

"Meh, he's 41; that's not even a milestone. Forget about it - we'll wait and send him a card when he's 50."

Not that I relish huge parties, having a bunch of noisy friends over to feed cake to and getting gifts I'll most likely have to return anyway. I'm just like anyone else; some recognition of the fact that I survived another year in this world is sufficient. A smile, a pat on the back, a thumbs-up, a cheery "happy birthday" greeting, even a cheesy card is good. Just a little something.

If I sound kind of grumpy or even let down with how the day progressed, well...maybe. Maybe the kid inm me still likes parties, lots of gifts and even more cake. But as you get older, people feel silly having parties or throwing parties for other people their own age. And as you grow bigger, so do the toys and the prices they want for them. I guess I'm still just a spoiled little kid at heart.

So, in one sense at least, I'm still young.

Guess I'll have to hold on to that.

Sorry, no video today. I'm too old to remember where YouTube is on this Inner-Net thing you kids have nowadays. Maybe I'll be out of my middle-age slump by tomorrow.

Maybe.

(Old) Dope out.

-TGWD