I turned 37 Wednesday. 37 is weird because it's kind of a blah age. There's nothing attached to it, you're not at an arbitary milestone like 30 or 35, and you're still far enough away from 40 that you don't have to freak out about it (yet).
Birthdays are always great for reflection, so I thought I'd jot down some things that are on my mind as I hit this completely manufactured moment. 37 things, in fact.
1. There was another mass shooting Wednesday. Actually there were two. Between the continued gun violence in the United States and the continued threat of terrorism around the globe, it is very easy to be pessimistic about our collective future. It seems bleak. I wonder - has it always been like this? If you were turning 37 during World War II, or during the AIDS epidemic of the 80's, would you have said the same thing? Does it always seem like the current situation is the worst? Or is this actually the worst?
2. I used to be very sheepish about letting people know it's my birthday, unlike my sister who tattoos it on her eyelids and then blinks rapidly at everyone she sees the entire month of October. Facebook has taken care of this, and as a result, pretty much everyone I've ever known now tells me happy birthday. I do very much appreciate their good intentions, but I am still catching up on what is proper Facebook etiquette regarding birthday wishes. It seems like the current trend is you must "like" every single birthday wish people post on your wall. Some people even reply to each comment, which I commend, but that's starting to venture dangerously close to Thank You Note territory, and I'm not sure "HBD!" is deserving of all that.
4. What gives, dentists' offices from my childhood? Goofus and Gallant are only so entertaining. I'd have been much more likely not to cry about an impending dentist visit if I knew I could play Ms. Pac Man GRATIS.
5. Here's a life lesson you are able to process better at 37 than at 27, and certainly at 17. Stop caring so much about what others think of you. There are only so many hours in the day - there is enough else to worry about in your life than to sit in a meeting wondering if people thought the question you asked was stupid or could have been phrased better. Be comfortable with who you are, and accept that you aren't perfect and never will be. You'll sleep a lot better.
6. Somehow that advice is easier to take when it doesn't involve something you create. I will probably give up on writing this list 10 times before I publish it because I'll worry people won't like it or think it's boring or pointless. It will definitely be too long. That's when I need to collect myself, read the item before this, and stop being such a baby. Plus no one is going to read past 3-4 items on this list anyway, our attention spans are about .00000001 microseconds now.
7. I've had this conversation with several of my friends recently about our experiences growing up and what we want for our kids. When I look back on my formative years, I wouldn't say I have regrets necessarily - but I do wish I wasn't so afraid of whatever it was I was afraid of. That is to say, I NEVER got in trouble. I didn't drink, try drugs, break curfew, anything. I was a total goody-goody. I don't say that to encourage illicit behavior, or disparage rule-followers. But I do think it would have done me good to test my boundaries more.
8. The movie American Pie came out when I was in college, and many of my college friends loved it because it was so reminiscent of their high school experiences. That movie didn't remind me a DAMN THING of high school. That version of American Pie would never make it to theaters, because no one wants to watch two hours of kids driving around aimlessly before eventually defaulting to renting a movie.
9. When it comes to my kids, I feel like I want them to be less like me in this regard, but it's hard to know where to draw the line, or how to react as a parent if/when the time comes. Like I hope they skip school their senior year and go get drunk and play video games at a friend's house, but I suppose I'll still have to punish them for it if they get caught. Or will I? Can I secretly give them a fist-bump and toussle their hair when Mom's not looking?
10. For lunch on my birthday I had shawarma at Yalla's at Krog Street Market. If you know me well, you know that I am quite likely (if not downright compelled) to eat shawarma whenever it is available. I ate it nearly daily when I lived in Israel, in part because I knew I couldn't get comparable product in the States. I was like a squirrel, saving up shawarma nuts for the long winter. Well Yalla, I tip my cap to you, because your shawarma is the best I've had this side of the Atlantic. There is literally a zero percent chance I'll ever eat anywhere else at Krog Street as long as you are open and putting french fries on the pita like God intended.
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| Happiness is a coke and a big-ass shawarma |
11. My relationship to sports is surprisingly different at 37 than it was before. My world used to revolve around them, and while it feels incredibly cliche to admit it, having kids upended my priorities immensely. I still follow sports closely, but in terms of watching them, it's pretty much down to pro football and soccer, with a dash of Texas sports when the teams aren't terrible. So not that often.
12. This has spilled over to my professional life as well. I grew up wanting to work in sports, and have been fortunate to do so for my entire career to this point, but that is likely to change in the near future. I got laid off from my job with the Hawks recently, and at other points in my life that might have been a devastating blow. I find myself at peace with it, in part because the notion of doing something outside the industry no longer scares me. I'd like to still be a part of something I have a passion for, so I'm looking to see if I can break into the shawarma vertical.
13. As a corrollary to #5, in my job search I am trying not to worry about what others think about what I do next. Growing up my goal was to be on SportsCenter, but eventually I decided to pursue a different path. I remember feeling like I was giving up and letting everyone down, which is quite silly. It's pretty narcissistic to think anyone expends any mental energy concerning themselves with your professional direction (outside of your parents perhaps), they've got their own lives to worry about.
14. Historically, at 37 I am pretty near to the mid-point of my life, or what the average lifespan would be. Apparently, that is changing. There are smart people who think the first people to live to see 150 are already alive, and advances in technology and medicine are bringing us closer to defeating diseases that have wiped out entire civilizations in the past. It's weird to ponder living that long. On the one hand it sounds great - who doesn't want to spend as much time on Earth as they can (current pessimism about the downfall of humanity aside)? On the other hand, I guess you can forget about retiring at 60. Or 90. Or 120?
15. People who drive golf carts would all fail geometry based on their interpretation of the 90-degree cart rule.
16. Speaking of Texas sports (#11), our hated rivals the Oklahoma Sooners will be in the upcoming College Football Playoffs. I asked my friends the other day - should we be rooting for or against them? It would seem obvious we should root against them, since they are the scum of the Earth and deserve nothing but terrible terribleness, but I would argue that nothing would be more fun than OU winning the whole thing, allowing us to forever lord over them that during this championship year they still got their asses handed to them by the boys in Burnt Orange.
17. Now that I'm 37, I am trying to start thinking more about how to take care of my body so I can live to still be a working man at 117. I've been running more frequently and for longer distances, and I even started flossing for goodness sake. This week I decided it was high time to add some push-ups into my exercise routine. I am following a plan set out by hundredpushups.com, which purports to have me doing 100 pushups at a time in six weeks. There are different workout regimens based on your current pushup abilities. I started out thinking I could hang with the column for people who could do 11+, then after one set immediately dropped down to the 6-10 camp. Now I think I have to start at the "less than 5" level. Good grief I am weak. Thankfully I don't care anymore what you think, or that would greatly trouble me.
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| 1-10 is fine, provided the 1 is over Oklahoma |
18. We are becoming so polarized as a society, and a lot of it is because technology has allowed us to filter out any opinions that differ from our own. That's how you end up with people who don't vaccinate their kids, or think climate change is a hoax. You know, morons. I am trying to fight this tendency the bravest way I know - by not unfollowing people on Facebook who disagree with me. I did it once, and felt so guilty about it I've vowed not to repeat it. The current debate over gun legislation is really testing my limits.
19. Politics is a dangerous topic. With that said, I don't understand the current fuss over Donald Trump and Ben Carson. I know they are leading the polls right now, but we are still nearly a year from the actual election. Spoiler alert - they ain't winning. Donald Duck and Carson Daly have as good a chance of being President in 2016 as they do.
20. If somehow one of them (or some other cartoonish figure) does end up getting elected, the thought has crossed my mind that it might be time to hit the old dusty trail and check out some other, less crazy part of the globe. These days, there don't seem to be too many places that provide the kind of normalcy one might seek to raise a family. It dawned on me that the country that most has its shit together right now is Germany. That's right, if things continue to get worse in the United States, I may have to emigrate to Germany. That is a sentence that makes complete sense in 2015.
21. I suspect people are more likely to get involved in politics and their communities as they get older, or at least that was the paradigm when I was growing up. I think you have to be crazy to get into politics, but I will say I daydream sometimes of running a grassroots organization to affect change. That change? I want to see the South, just one time, not be the last place in the country to adapt to modern standards. We are always last. I know it's hard, South, to give in on gay marriage, legalized drugs, desegregation, common sense political districting, women's rights to choose, creationism, Confederate symbols, separation of church and state, universal healthcare, gun control, and so on. But can we band together on one issue and take, as we say to our kids, one no thank you bite? Can we try one bite of vegetables? Metaphorically, and also literally, speaking?
19. Politics is a dangerous topic. With that said, I don't understand the current fuss over Donald Trump and Ben Carson. I know they are leading the polls right now, but we are still nearly a year from the actual election. Spoiler alert - they ain't winning. Donald Duck and Carson Daly have as good a chance of being President in 2016 as they do.
20. If somehow one of them (or some other cartoonish figure) does end up getting elected, the thought has crossed my mind that it might be time to hit the old dusty trail and check out some other, less crazy part of the globe. These days, there don't seem to be too many places that provide the kind of normalcy one might seek to raise a family. It dawned on me that the country that most has its shit together right now is Germany. That's right, if things continue to get worse in the United States, I may have to emigrate to Germany. That is a sentence that makes complete sense in 2015.
21. I suspect people are more likely to get involved in politics and their communities as they get older, or at least that was the paradigm when I was growing up. I think you have to be crazy to get into politics, but I will say I daydream sometimes of running a grassroots organization to affect change. That change? I want to see the South, just one time, not be the last place in the country to adapt to modern standards. We are always last. I know it's hard, South, to give in on gay marriage, legalized drugs, desegregation, common sense political districting, women's rights to choose, creationism, Confederate symbols, separation of church and state, universal healthcare, gun control, and so on. But can we band together on one issue and take, as we say to our kids, one no thank you bite? Can we try one bite of vegetables? Metaphorically, and also literally, speaking?
22. Kobe Bryant is retiring. Kobe is one year older than me, and the number of pro athletes my age or older continue to dwindle. I think there are only six in the NBA this season, and in the NFL it's like Charles Woodson, Peyton Manning, Matt Hasselbeck, and then a raftfull of kickers. It's a little depressing to see your athletic heroes facing (sports) mortality.
23. At 37, I'm trying to take a step back and reflect, to make sure I'm not clinging to habits and routines simply because they are how I've always done them. I went to the dermatologist a few weeks ago and she asked me if I was still using shampoo. Of course I am, I said - I'm not a heathen. She told me it probably wasn't necessary, you know, since I have no hair. Well fuck me, I haven't had hair for going on 15 years, and it literally never occurred to me that I was wasting my time with shampoo. What else am I blindly following? I'm looking at you, "wearing pants."
24. And yet, there is comfort in knowing that no matter how much the world changes, some things will always be the same. Like my iPad just crashed and deleted the last seven things I wrote in this list, and it sucked just as bad as when that happened to me writing papers back in high school. Still I press on, but excuse me for one second while I shout a torrent of profanity into a pillow.
25. I do not like watching children's TV programming, so we watch a lot of music and concerts on YouTube in my house. This has led me to rediscover a lot of hilarious music videos from back in the day. Right now my kids are obsessed with ELO's "Don't Bring Me Down". We watch it several times a week, and as such I've seen every inch of that video. And so I ask you - what's going on with the keyboardists right here? That seems like a very 70's thing - synchronized keyboarding.
26. I'm now old enough that the pop culture of my youth is being romanticized on the big screen. I saw Straight Outta Compton earlier this year, and it whisked me back to a magical time when, as a young, white, Jewish grade schooler, I listened to the cassingle of that song over and over on my walkman and felt like a total badass. It was the radio edit - and it wasn't until years later I actually heard the unrated version that had the likes of Tipper Gore in such a huff.
27. It's probably a good thing I didn't get the version with all the curse words - I didn't handle hiding that so well from my parents. One time we were on a road trip, and I was listening to my favorite album at the time, "A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing" by Black Sheep. One song was like ALL curse words, but I was determined to sing it out loud, censoring the words as needed as I went. I was doing a pretty bang up job for awhile, so it was then quite a surprise to my sisters when I shouted out "Didn't give a fuck so I shot him in the toe!" I thought I nailed it, since the actual line features a gunshot wound to a much more painful area, but I guess I forgot about the fuck. Fuck, I forgot!
28. I am referencing my age a lot, but I don't feel that old most of the time. I first truly felt my age a few years ago, when I took my employees to trivia night. One of the questions was "What was the name of Tony Soprano's daughter on The Sopranos?" I knew it immediately, but everyone else looked at me with a collective blank stare. None of them had ever seen The Sopranos. The Sopranos! It's not like the question was what Archie Bunker called his son-in-law on All in the Family or who introduced the Beatles to America. The Sopranos was on the air for several years in this century! I still can't believe the generation gap is so large as to make The Sopranos ancient news.
29. Star Wars comes out next week, and there are commercials everywhere telling you - imploring you - to get your tickets now before they sell out. That movie is going to be in theaters for nine months, playing 15 times a day. I feel confident I'll catch it at some point.
30. As the parents of two young boys, I know the times are coming when we have to delicately explain to them how their bodies (penises) work and try to lay some ground rules about their care and maintenance. Jamie just turned four, and we were at the doctor for his yearly check up last week. Our pediatrician asked us if we had any concerns, at which point I looked over at Jamie, who was staring Lil' Jamie in the eye and grinning. That might be a concern, doc. That might be a concern.
31. I mentioned I've been using my time to get in better shape. I ran a personal-best 10K over Thanksgiving, but my time wasn't what was most important to me - that was making sure no one requiring adult supervision at the movies beat me. At one point a couple of kids passed me, but I bore down and overtook them on the final hill leading up to the finish line. The next step is to beat all the runners with strollers. You gotta have goals.
32. I don't play daily fantasy, though it seems like it'd be right up my alley. I don't have much of a stake in whether it is declared legal or not, despite the fact that it is quite obviously gambling. I think gambling should be legal, so I'm not against the concept, but the whole kerfuffle over whether it is or isn't reminds me once again that life is about one thing and one thing only - loopholes. In every facet of life rules are set up, and then we spend all our time trying to do everything the rules prohibit without actually, technically, breaking them. Next March or April, do yourself a favor and walk through your local grocery and check out the Kosher For Passover fare. Cakes, bagels, bacon cheeseburgers - you name it, they've somehow engineered a way to make all the things you love to eat but aren't supposed to over Passover, which while technically legal from an ingredient standpoint, misses the whole point of the exercise in the first place.
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| Nope. |
33. My grandparents got us a Nintendo when I was little, something my parents would never do. It was a joyous occasion, truly one of the highlights of my childhood. In related news, my in-laws got our son an iPad-like device. I wasn't really in favor of it. I am such a hypocrite.
34. Coming up with 37 different things to write about is hard. I should have done this when I turned 12.
35. I wish I knew then what I know now. That's a common phrase, and as I mentioned it certainly applies to wishing I'd tested my limits a little more when I was younger. Sometimes I wonder what I will say later on in life that I wish I knew during this time. I think I may know what it is - and that is dinner/bedtime for our boys. It's really the only time of day we get to relax and play with them, and in many ways it's truly wonderful. Also in many ways, I can't wait for it to be over so we can decompress. Am I going to regret feeling that way? I feel guilty typing it even now, but man, it sure is nice to have a little quiet time when the kids are finally down. Sorry to let you down, future me, I have a feeling you'll remember throwing the football with your children more than binge-watching Orange Is The New Black. At least that show has nudity?
36. I missed most of the on-line dating revolution. I spent a brief period on JDate before I met my wife, but I was off the market before the agony of dealing with Tinder or removing exes from your social media posts became a real concern. Getting laid off has a whiff of that. I still haven't changed my job title on LinkedIn. I don't suppose I can say "It's Complicated" for my current occupation can I?
37. I said before that the number 37 really has no meaning, but that's not entirely true. For anyone my age, the number 37 will always be associated with a scene from the movie Clerks. And now that's how old I am. I'm 37??? I'll try not to do anything on the way to the parking lot.
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