The 39 38 Steps
A little older, a little flakier... not exactly where I pictured myself to be at this age, but then again I've never ever pictured myself being this age. You picture 40, y'know? You picture 50, 60, some nice obvious rounded-off even number. I picture myself at 90, all long gray tangled curls and boobs down to my ankles sitting in my rocking chair on the porch of my house built out of tin cans and epoxied album covers, with a cigar clenched between my teeth and a shotgun on my lap while stray cats wander in and out of my front door and "Standing On The Verge Of Getting It On" cranks sweetly on the old Victrola coming out of my open windows. But I never pictured myself at 38. I guess because picturing myself at 90 is a thousand times more fun.
posted by Melissa at 7:48 AM
3 Comments:
As a kid I often imagined myself at 38, because it would be in the year 2000, and from a 1978 teenage viewpoint that seemed like a special place to be. And when I reached 38, I realized that it wasn't all that much different from being 16. Still a lot of the same talents and hangups, still the same basic template. ("Still the same," as Bob Seger sang in 1978.)
For those of us who develop stubborn obsessions with self-identity from early on, aging isn't really the agent of change it's cracked up to be.
Hey Greg!
That's funny that you did that, because as a kid I always tried to picture myself as a 31 year old on new years eve 2000 and wonder what my life would be like at that point. I had all these romantic notions of it being a spectacular moment in time, and sadly it actually turned out to be rather dreadful and depressing, since I threw a millennium party that nobody attended. Turns out 31 wasn't going to be nearly as interesting as the years that followed it, and that at least was an encouraging thing.
"Still The Same"... wow, I was listening to that album religiously back in 1978. What potent memories.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BABY!
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