It’s the End of the World As We Know It

Ok, if the title of this post didn’t get the song stuck in your head (as it is in mine), then please go here, listen to it and then finish reading. I don’t like to suffer alone.

Well, then, welcome back.

If the pollen count wasn’t so high, I’d be outside painting my sandwich sign-board and humming along with R.E.M. “It’s the end of the world as we know it . . . it’s the end of the world as we know it . . . it’s the end of the world as we know it . . . I feel fine . . .” And how do I know it’s the end, you ask?

Because the Boy Scouts are now offering merit badges for Video Gaming. Honest and true. Granted, they say they’re doing it to teach responsibility and good sportsmanship. And perhaps that’s true. But I can’t help but think it’s because they’ve given up. The world has just sunk too far for even the ever optimistic and capable to be hopeful.

Regardless of how you feel about the Boy Scouts, we have all always taken for granted that if the world were about to be destroyed, a Boy Scout-like person would be there to save the day. We might be snarky about them. We might make fun of their Park-Ranger-from-Yogi-Bear-styled uniforms. We might joke about knot-tying badges. But, underneath the sarcasm there remained the security and knowledge that they could save us in great times of dire need.

Remember reading Alas Babylon! in high school? Remember that feeling during the Cold War when you finally understood that everything as we knew it could be destroyed within a couple of hours? Well, think a little harder now and reflect on who it was that could save us all. It was the people who could build shelters, fish, start a fire without lighters or charcoal bricks even. And who else but the Boy Scouts can we count on to do that?

Now then, if they are reduced to giving badges for video gaming, what could that mean? Does it mean they’ve given up hope that there’s nothing they can do to save us now? That we’re so f*cked it doesn’t matter if they know how to fish without a commercial rod? Did they just throw up their hands and say, “aw, to hell with it. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em”?

Or am I reading too much into it?

Will Write for Drugs

Just read through an employment ad for a writer. A marketing company is looking for writers who specialize in “Niche Diseases.”

I’m not such a writer, but the thought of niche diseases almost makes me want to apply. Niche disease. I realize “niche” has been used to define particular markets for years, but every time I hear it I think of artistic snob appeal. So there’s a funky, semi-twisted ideal in my head as to what a niche disease could be.

Immediately I thought back to when I worked at a university several years ago and we hired an artist (forgive me, it was an artiste) to create a wall hanging. He stood waiting for the dean, refusing to sit on the furniture, and explained to me that his niche was in creating 3D symbolic representations for worlds that have none. Apparently a law school, in his private universe, was such a world.

He pulled up both corners of his upper lip and stretched out niche to the point where spit bubbles formed between his teeth. Thank god I was only in young mode and not young-and-stupid mode. I only smiled and blinked at him, somehow not blurting out a snarky comeback like “I specialize in shitting in symbolic representations of toilets.”

And now niche diseases! Yikes. I mean, how pretentious can a disease get? I’m picturing people in chic black hospital gowns leaning at awkward angles on white furniture in a white, minimalist room. They probably speak with (fake) European accents and smoke cigarettes. Maybe even a few are wearing berets or black, round glasses. They are woefully bored with the whole concept of being alive, which is the root cause of their affliction.

Diagnoses would be made by a doctor who looks suspiciously like Freud and speaks haltingly with a (real) German accent. Notes on his clipboard say “they should immediately stop taking themselves so seriously.” Then he will pass out prescriptions for the birth control that makes you giddy happy as you chop off your bangs and blow bubbles while fully clothed in the shower. (Have you seen that commercial?)

Pharmaceutical marketing is just getting weirder and weirder. I’d love to know what kind of drugs their writers are taking. Obviously something is keeping their imagination revved up and in full swing.

I Feel Validated

Yes, I was so validated this morning I was ready to blast into the kitchen and announce the news, but somehow on the way downstairs I forgot about it and it wound up being breakfast as usual at our house. But I remember now. I’m like Ron White that way: a thought easily escapes my mind, but eventually it finds its way back home. You just gotta be patient.

Anyway, I’ve long been adamant that multitasking is nothing to brag about. I know as a woman I’m not supposed to say that because there’s a rumor out there saying mothers are born multitaskers. I don’t believe it. It’s not something we’re born with, it’s just something we’re stuck with having to do–like changing diapers. What’s the alternative? There is none. Some of us are better than others–multitasking that is, though I suppose the same could be said for diaper changing. I’m good at multitasking sometimes, but not frequently but it always stresses me the hell out. And I’m not alone, hence someone invented National Single-tasking day.

I remember when I first found out about it. I was going to tell everyone I knew and force them into celebrating it by doing one thing at a time for the entire day. Of course I forgot about it when something shiny caught my eye. But it’s Feb. 22, for those of you who don’t believe me. And I have an alarm set for Feb. 21 and 22 in my Outlook calendar. We’ll have fun with it next year, damn it.

But, back to my validation . . . This morning on Good Morning America I learned someone somewhere did a study that proves the human mind can only handle two tasks at a time. Any more than that and we just don’t do a good job, the more we do the less we do it well. Isn’t that fabulous news? Now, every time I’m late somewhere because I was crooning with Crowded House on the car radio (singing + driving = 2 things), I no longer have to feel like a complete idiot when I take the wrong turn in my neighborhood and get lost. No one should have expected me to be on time to begin with. If they did, they’d request that I dont’ listen to the radio when I’m on my way. And the next time I walk to my mailbox and I’m talking on the phone (walking + talking = 2 things) and I forget to get the mail, it’s OK. Again, no one should have expected me to be able to remember to get it to begin with.

You have no idea how much lighter my step was today every time I realized it’s perfectly natural, maybe even normal, to lose the things I lost today: coffee cup, car keys, shopping cart, blue tooth (twice), glass of water, and comb (it’s only 3:30 folks, that’s why the list is so short). I’m in the midst of several projects that I keep focusing on and getting interrupted by. I’m sure each one of those things was lost when I was trying to focus on more than two things.

All my life I’ve wondered why it is that I’m constantly backtracking and rebacktracking, and now I know it’s because I am not meant to do more than two things at once, and I pretty much live my life doing much more than that. Frankly I’m amazed I’ve made it to my age with all my limbs attached. Life must be good, indeed.

All That #$%^* Complaining!

I’ve been on vacation. Call me paranoid, but after hearing about people being robbed after announcing on FaceBook that they were out of town, I thought I’d wait and mention it after I arrived back at my non-burglarized home.

It was a beautiful trip. Lots of sun, splashing, relaxing, eating and drinking. You’d think I’d have nothing to complain about, but of course I do–about how bleeping hard it is to stop complaining. I took a couple of books with me on my trip: Michael Neill’s SuperCoach, Daniel Amen’s Change Your Brain Change Your Body and Chelsea Handler’s Are You there Vodka? It’s Me Chelsea (which was the most enjoyable).

I like to read Neill’s stuff in bits and pieces. I read a chapter here and there just as mind fodder and I tell myself it makes me a better person. The only thing I’ve read in this current book is the first chapter where he suggests you try going a week without saying a complaint out loud. I thought a week vacationing would be prime time to give it a go.

Of course, it was the week I couldn’t get my laptop to connect the the Wi-Fi at the place where we were staying. I also woke up in the middle of the night every night with major indigestion because I was eating shit foods I don’t normally eat. (I actually stared at the ceiling for a good half hour one pre-dawn morning wondering if a hole had been eaten in my stomach lining. How would I know? It sure felt like it.) The gulf water was too cold to swim in. They began mowing the lawn at the place where we stayed before it was legal (in my opinion) to wake up in the morning. I managed to get two splinters embedded in my foot from the boardwalk at the beach. And the list goes on and on. It’s all pretty mild stuff, and most of it is probably not worth complaining about to most people. My biggest complaint is that I failed at it in part to my tragic flaw of being ADD.

Do you know how hard it is to remind yourself you quit complaining when you can’t quite remember what you were doing thirty seconds ago? On top of it, as previously mentioned in this blog, my mouth sometimes pops things out that I thought I was thinking and didn’t realize I was saying. It’s not a good combination.

It did get me thinking though. At first I was disappointed in how much I complain. But then I started questioning whether or not something was a complaint. Screaming an expletive when a weed-whacker just a wall’s width away blasts you awake isn’t really a complaint is it? What about when you’re getting your toes wet and a salty wave suddenly splashes your warm thighs, taking your breath away and you say “Yikes! That’s cold!” Is that a complaint? Or are you merely pointing out a negative?

But then really, does it matter if it’s a complaint or a negative? Should you be focusing on either one? Not that I can focus on much for an extended period of time–but that other book, the Change Your Brain one is offering me hope for that. It was just enlightening. Many people I know think I’m a positive person. But after failing my repeated trials of refraining from the ultimate in negativity, i.e., complaining, it has me wondering.

I’m still giving it the ‘ole college try. Neill suggests you just start your week over when you catch yourself complaining. It took him a full year to be able to go a week without complaining. I’m giving myself a decade.

iPod Personality Test

I popped into the office I share with my husband last night, grabbed my iPod and announced I was going to “bless the universe with my music” while I cooked dinner. He smiled at me, followed me to the door and shut it behind me–the office is right next to the kitchen and I guess he felt he didn’t need a blessing.

Actually, he just doesn’t like some of the music I do.

I docked the little machine in the kitchen speaker, hit shuffle and started crooning away while I began my evening shift as short-order cook, because no one in my family can possible ever eat anything someone else is eating (but that’s a blog for another day). The first song was Rickie Lee Jone’s “Magazine.” She was followed by the Clash’s “Overpowered by Funk.” By the time dinner was ready for I’d performed alongside Jimmy Buffett, Jack Johnson, Coldplay, Rosie Vela (am I the only one who remembers her?) and other favorites. It was an almost exhausting concert.

When hubby appeared asking if it was safe to enter the kitchen, I was feeling groovy and happy. I love the “shuffle” concept: no decisions to make and it’s all good. A true stress antidote.

Anyway, it got me thinking . . . has anyone done a psychology test based on the music on a person’s iPod? I haven’t read Cosmo for a couple decades–do they still do tests like that? We all have eclectic tastes–one would think those tastes said something deep and profound about our personalities. Do they say something about the real us? Aside from suggesting I’m at least partially stuck in the 1980’s, if someone found my iPod on a beach and listened to everything on the shuffle setting, what else would that person be able to glean about me? Would he or she be able to pick me out of a crowd?

I’ve a friend who is such a Parrot Head (for those of you not in the know, that’s NOT an insult; it just means she’s a big Jimmy Buffett fan) that I’m sure if someone found her iPod they’d look for some deeply tanned, bleach blond chick in a coconut bra speaking with a long-drawled twang. But no, she’s a tall brunette from Chicago, and she’d have to get seriously drunk before she’d even consider the coconut bra.

I was surprised one day when a rather conservative woman I know confessed her iPod was full of expletive-filled rap music. She claimed it got her fired up when she was working out. I was about to suggest she look up the Violent Femmes, as they always get me going, but there was a glint in her eye that made me retreat. I got the feeling I could be the nudge that sent her over the edge.

Then there’s the 13-year old kid in my neighborhood who likes Frank Sinatra. Whoever would have thunk?

My kids’ iPods definitely reflect each of them. The daughter’s is loaded up with just about everything she heard on Radio Disney and my son has U2, ColdPlay and Linkin Park in all their glory, which seems to match his deep, young and yet powerful mind.

Perhaps our iPods could be the next litmus test for public office. What was it Obama listened to on the campaign trail? I can’t remember. But I think next time I learn about what someone in a position of power listens to on his or her iPod, I’m going to pay better attention. Though I’m not sure if I’ll be able to interpret the results all that well.

Do you ever outgrow stupidity?

A couple decades ago I had such a flash of insight I still don’t understand why there weren’t reports of mysterious lightening on the local news. It was the day I discovered a major flaw in human beings, so major that I ever after doubted the believability of both evolutionary theory and intelligent design.

I worked with a woman–let me rephrase that with the right emphasis–I worked with a woman who was paid to have her presence in the building. (That’s not just my opinion. No one ever accused her of working as she had the reputation of being someone who was not exactly well endowed in the intellectual department.) Anyway, this woman came up to me one day and said, “Lisa, I was thinking . . .” and she paused, at which point I spouted, “Oh God! Did it hurt?”

And that’s when the flash of insight happened. It dawned on me that if the theory of evolution held water, people like me would have been bred out of existence. And if intelligent design was right, that would suggest people were created in a Christian god’s image, which in turn would suggest God is a pretty snarky, impulsive being (and doesn’t that conflict with the whole omnipotent, omnibenevolent image?).

Thankfully it didn’t occur to my co-worker that she should be offended. She laughed and went on to tell me the brilliant thought she believed she was blessed with, which wasn’t the same brilliant thought I had: people should have a re-set button. And that idea is the key bit of proof that maybe we are all alone in the universe with no rhyme or reason.

Why can’t we have a nerve ending somewhere in our forearms that, when pressed, makes you forget everything that happened within the previous thirty seconds? Granted, I didn’t need it with my former co-worker, but imagine how those proverbial answers to “do I look fat in this?” could be handled. All a man would have to do is, after impulsively answering with the truth, lean forward and lovingly touch his favorite woman on the arm and say “you look fabulous.” She’d never be any wiser.

And think about how much more fun TV news could be. Remember that Katie Couric interview with Sarah Palin? Couric could have started a question and pressed Palin’s arm at just the right second so that all Palin would remember would be the first and last words of the question. Just imagine what her responses would have been! Then again, maybe they would have been the same. But you get the point. It could make the news so much more fun.

But we don’t have such a nerve ending, or at least I never found one. So fools like me tend to go on blundering around the universe occasionally spouting things off that offend, belittle and denigrate others. And usually, it’s not meant with ill intent. Like yesterday. I was checking out at a salon when one of the people who worked there was talking about how she’s almost finished with her first year of trade school and her dad was still disappointed she hadn’t gone to college. She was looking forward to moving out on her own and not having to rely on her dad to support her, but was worried she wouldn’t make enough money. I told her to just do her best and enjoy it because “you’re only young and stupid once” and it’ll be harder to get away with that kind of behavior later in her life.

The look on her face suggested she wasn’t sure if she was insulted. I quickly explained that we’re all young and stupid at some point, but we all don’t have the liberty of trying to live our life that way, that some of us survive and thrive (take rock stars for example) by following through on our young and stupid ways. I freely admit to my young and stupid days, which apparently have gone on for much longer than should be legal. But I didn’t mean stupid in the sense of low IQ; I simply meant stupid in the sense of believing you understood the world when you really aren’t old enough too. But the more I went on, the further away from me she backed, and I thought, “geesh, it would be so much easier if we just had a freaking re-set button!”

Like we need yet another political party

I’ve decided I have a split personality. But I don’t think it’s the kind that can be fixed by a psychiatrist, a psychologist, or an exorcising priest. It’s a political split personality. I’m just not sure there is a political side that I’m definitely on.

And the Internet is to blame. The Internet and Nielson ratings. They conspired to inflict this condition on me and I think they’re happily inflicting it on everyone. Oooooo, look! A new conspiracy theory!

Once upon a time, when our source of information was television news, television news that was not interested in viewer ratings, being able to figure out where you stood on a particular issue was pretty clear cut. Everything was black and white, even though the news was broadcast in technicolor (I’m not that old. Oh, those were the days. Now, it’s not so easy. Now we all suffer from information overload, whether or not we want to admit it. Now many of us are distressed by the signs and symptoms of analysis paralysis–a condition brought on by getting so much information that you are unable to make a decision.

For example: I no longer know to what political party I belong. I used to say things like, in my heart I’m a libertarian, but intellectually I know the human race will never evolve to a point where we all take personal responsibility for every aspect of our lives. So I was a kinder, gentler, progressive democrat. I thought I was so smart. I used to be full of opinions and the issues of the day and willing to spout them off as if they were carved in stone, burning bush nearby. I still do that sometimes, but not as much as I used to. It’s partly because I feel like I’m on both sides of the fence now and it’s partly because I’ve been blessed with so much “news” that I just don’t know whom to believe and what is the ultimate truth.

Take the health care bill. I’ve been blasted with so much opinion, and opinion presented as fact, and fact presented as opinion, that I don’t really know what’s true. Once I looked up parts of the bill because I received an email from a “trusted source” telling me horrific things were hidden in it. Things like the government would have instant access to my checking account to make me immediately pay for my share of the bill. I looked it up, and that’s not what the actual document said. The actual document said that I would have instant access to knowing what my exact financial responsibility of the bill would be. Which sounds like a pretty good idea to me, as I’ve received bills from doctors that were a year or so past due because it took them that long to figure out what I owed versus the insurance company. And they’re never worded pleasantly. Of course by the time I was able to look it all up and figure out what it meant, the health care reform bill changed and I’m now no longer sure if my instant outrage and fear is still a moot point.

Anyway, this morning I heard on the “news” that by 2014 all people will be required to have insurance or they will be fined for it. It riled my libertarian feathers. I mean, since when did the government have the right to demand that people buy something, maybe even something they cannot afford? And if they can’t afford it, how the hell will they afford the fine? And suddenly I was adamantly against the bill. BUT, later in the morning, I read a blog of a student who works as a pastry chef in Philly (I really wish I could figure out how to post links to this site; one day I will and you’ll be able to read what I read, too). She’s in her last year of working on an MFA and will be on her own insurance-wise next year. She has a medical history none of us want as it includes childhood leukemia. And now she doesn’t have to worry about insurance companies refusing to cover her next year. So the progressive in me raised her hackles and was all for the health care reform bill because now insurance companies will not be allowed to exclude that student from coverage.

So which political party does that put me in? Is there a split-personality party? And I don’t want to belong to anything named after a caffeinated drink. The world doesn’t need any more jittery fingers pointing at all and nothing. But it makes me wonder if there’s a party named after an alcoholic beverage. The Brewer’s Party, perhaps? It might make sense in this day and age and it would bring us back to our origins. If you read the journals and personal letters of our founding fathers, you’ll quickly learn they were all piss-ass drunk when they were debating our Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Maybe if we create a party based on the “I love you man!” philosophy, we’ll all just get a long a little bit better? Maybe even get along long enough to figure it all out?

Obscenities

Jesse Scheidlower holds the esteemed position of Editor at Large for the Oxford English Dictionary, which is one reason why he’s one of my heroes.  Another reason is because late last year he revised and reprinted a book originally published in 1995 called  The F Word.  And yes, it explores the F -bomb in great detail.

Why does that give him hero status in my little world?  Because here we have an eminent scholar taking on society at large, challenging our bizarre attempts to arbitrarily choose a sound and give it power. Somebody had to do it.  I’m just glad it’s someone with a sound, scholarly educational background.

The origins of the F-word are unclear, but contrary to urban legends, it is not an acronym for “For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge” or anything else.  It has been in use in the English language since the 15th century and is probably related to older Germanic words meaning either “to strike” or “to move back and forth.”  Which is innocent enough; almost makes it laughable that people can’t use it in common language in some circles.

Anybody can use it or any other word in front of me.  I, personally, have the vocabulary of a drunken sailor on occasion–and I don’t have to be drunk or at sea to do it (though I’m sure that would only encourage me).  Words are just words for me.  The power in them, I believe, comes from how they are used, not simply in their sound or existence.  Sometimes I drop an F-bomb because I’m angry.  Sometimes I do it because I’m awed.  I use it when it seems to fit the circumstance better than any other word that comes to me.  If I felt another word would do just fine, I’d pop it in there; really I’ve no preference one way or another.

I do censor myself in certain company, knowing full well that there are people on this planet who are offended by that word regardless of how it’s used.  And though I don’t understand it, I do try to respect their opinion on the matter and stutter out something else.  The hard part is teaching my children to do the same.

I try hard not to swear in front of my kids.  Not because I think their innocence will forever be destroyed if they hear mommy yelling “shit!” as she runs to the stove where smoke is billowing out from the oven.  But because society will treat them as if they are miscreants should they emulate me at their current age.  They have heard me curse (I refuse to call them “bad” words), as I do tend to slip up on occasion, and they now have a list of words they cannot say until they are as tall as I am because, my theory is, by then they will understand why they cannot say certain things in front of certain people.  My goal in that little educational endeavor is that they grow up not to be offended by words, but by actions.  After all, isn’t that one thing all parents agree on?  Isn’t that one of the things we all teach?  “Sticks and stones can break my bones but words will never hurt me?”

Another challenge with the kids comes from me not realizing some words are offensive.  My daughter rounded a corner in the hall and slammed into my husband.  Startled, she yelled: “Daddy! You scared the crap out of me!” My husband was upset with her and demanded to know where she learned the word “crap.”  I’m sure he knew the answer before she said “Mommy” but he gave me the benefit of the doubt and waited for her reply.  In all seriousness and honesty, I never knew “crap” was considered an obscenity.  I still find it questionable, even though I looked it up in my American Heritage Dictionary where it says the word is “Vulgar Slang.” Since when?  And really?

So yes, I thank Jesse Sheidlower.  Thank you for agreeing with me. Thank you for challenging society on the way it thinks.  And thank you for writing one hell of an entertaining book.

E-Venting

Georgetown University linguistics professor Deborah Tannen wrote a book about how men and women have different communication styles.  First published back in 1991, the book You Just Don’t Understand is about how women prefer to make emotional connections when they communicate and men just like to share knowledge.  The book is filled with plenty of caveats about how she’s not stereotyping but is speaking in generalizations and she has plenty of research and studies to back it all up.

I loved the book and found it to be both believable and credible.  It certainly fits the bill with myself.  I can’t seem to let anything come out of my mouth without a bit of sentiment or emotion attached to it.  Perhaps it’s a good thing Sgt. Joe Friday never had to question me.  Just the facts?  What fun is there in that?  What do facts tell you?

One of Tannen’s areas of focus concerns complaining.  She claims that often when women complain about a problem, they do so as a cathartic means to an end:  they are venting simply to get it off their chests.  Most women will respond with understanding and even with empathetic examples to show how they understand the pain and aggravation.  Most men, on the other hand, will respond with ways to solve the problem whether or not the woman asked for a solution. 

I think it would be interesting if Prof. Tannen followed up her seminal work with one on email dialogue.  There is a definite line drawn in the sand distinguishing the emails written by women from those written by men, particularly when it comes to complaining and venting. I have never had a man send a complaint or a vent to me for any reason.  Ever.  But I have loads from women.  Not complaining about me.  Just complaining.

In fact, on a daily basis I have a couple of friends from whom I often get just one line, maybe two.  Just a quick phrase that if anyone were reading over my shoulder, they’d think the rest of the email was lost or that the “sent” button was clicked in haste and the email was unfinished.  I know better, as I’ve shot similar emails to those same people. 

Perhaps we’re creating a new phenomena:  e-venting.  Sometimes we do it because a thought popped into our heads and it feels like we’ll explode unless we let it out.  Sometimes we do it for comic relief because it’s hard to believe the loonier experiences in our lives.  Sometimes we do it to make sure we are indeed sane, because only sane people would feel that way, right?  And sometimes it’s because it just feels like someone’s listening and if you have children at home you know there are times when all you want, all you need, is to know that someone actually recognizes your attempts to communicate and understands what you’re saying.

In essence, we do it for the detoxification benefits.  As long as we’re careful about checking the “to” box, there’s always a momentary pause in the chaos of our lives when we click “send.”  We relax in the knowledge that the universe has taken away our angst. We’ve sent the negativity that was bundled up inside ourselves out into the electronic ethers. And miracle of miracles, our stress levels drop.  Until we’re given more fodder.

Midlife ain’t so bad

It may be too early to say this, but I think my generation may have discovered the preventative cure for mid-life crises.  I say this because I’m surrounded by people in their forties who, despite the fact that they’re living in a country at war during an economic downturn, are just fine with their lives.  I don’t know of one man with a jones for a new, hot red sports car, or who just got his ear pierced, or who is ready to leave his wife for the first sweet young thing to look his way.  Likewise, I don’t know of one single woman who is ready to follow-up with her ogling of the bag boys at Whole Foods, who is designing the perfect first tattoo, or who is ready to leave her husband for another female.

So why are we so emotionally stable with our age?  I believe it’s because we’re all a little surprised we’re still alive and kicking. 

Just about everyone in my generation grew up expecting die sometime shortly after their 30^th birthday. They may never have thought about it consciously, though many of us did, but I can guarantee you the thought was always percolating in a hidden recess of our brains at all times.  It started in Kindergarten when we learned how to prepare for fire, tornadoes and Cold War bombs whose existence demanded we die.  (Am I the only one who wondered, while curled in fetal position on the floor during a bomb raid drill, why they didn’t just build everything out of the same metal and wood that they made the desks we had to cower under?) The follow up began when we started watching TV.  News coverage proved the previous generation’s motto of Sex, Drugs & Rock-and-Roll was really warning us of new causes for our natural end.  We watched, spellbound, as the footage of dead-via-over-dose celebrities, suffering AIDS patients, and the horror of being trampled to death at a Who concert streamed before us.  Religion didn’t offer much comfort.  All the Southern Baptists in my geographical area were convinced the world would end in 1980 because some kid born somewhere had some mark on him and there was some building that symbolized some beast that rose out of some sea.  After they were proved wrong, they were replaced by New Agers meditating at Lake Eola park telling us the Earth would be destroyed when the planets aligned in 1988.  During junior high our science teachers, the first Global Warming preachers, taught a curriculum detailing how the entire history of mankind only served to create an environment too toxic for the earth to survive.  We’d leave the lab and stumble down the down the hall only to read Alas Babylon in English class.  Who knew Argentina would be a world leader after the US and Soviet Union were destroyed?  No wonder they keep saying we should learn to speak Spanish.  And meanwhile, Y2K loomed ever closer.

Thirty?  Who was gonna live to thirty?

Us! And we did!  But we did it a little differently than our predecessors. 

Perhaps it was a natural inclination toward a joie de vivre in the face of death.  We insisted on having a good time while we waited for the killer asteroid to hit (no, that wasn’t a new fear from the early 2000’s; we started it back in ’86 with rumors about the real reason the space shuttle Challenger exploded).  We never gave up our fast cars; we had one in the garage alongside the family sedan—or better yet, we had two sexy SUVs.  We never thought we’d work only one job that would burn us out.  In fact, if you had only one company on your resume you looked like you had no experience.  So we bounced around from company to company, industry to industry.  Many of us waited until we were in our thirties to get married and start a family, and our kids only help us maintain our juvenile habits.  We ski on the Wii with our children and we buy them sodas to drink while we sip on cocktails at our favorite restaurants.    We teach them how to tail gate at rock concerts and foot ball games.  And when the kids aren’t around, we still act like we did when we were barely out of high school.  We’ll tuck our babes in bed and head down stairs to indulge the frat-boy mentality that still resides in both sexes as we watch Entourage or It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.  We said to hell with social conservative customs and jeans are now accepted everywhere, even in high-end dining establishments.  Our president says “it’s all cool” and we’re buying Lego sets to ease our stress.

Maybe it’s all Jimmy Buffett’s fault.  He did give us the line “I’d rather die while I’m living than live while I’m dead.”  Or maybe it was Prince’s dictate to “Party Like It’s 1999.”  Whatever it was, we never disconnected ourselves from our youthful appetites, never questioned the validity of our desires, never censored our tastes.  So instead of arriving at mid-life in anger and fear, feeling unfulfilled and resentful because we’re missing out on something as we age, we seem to be mildly amused. Already pierced, tattooed and in possession of a drawer full of current concert T-shirts, we go out to dinner with friends when inevitably someone says something like “have you noticed how impatient you’re getting as you get older?” And we laugh because we realize we’re becoming crotchety old fools and it’s no big deal.