25 to life
There are only two occasions when I think about my age: on my birthday and when I'm directly asked. Otherwise, I'm not particularly bothered about being 40-something. When someone remarks that my looks and interests don't mesh with what they perceive as my advanced age, I appreciate the compliment. Would I like to be a few years younger? Sure. I'd have more time to get an MFA, develop another undiscovered talent, read more books. But that's not the reason why I never volunteer my age. It's this bizarre expression of disappointment that people are never quick enough to disguise, as though their entire perception of me has changed. I could understand if someone re-examined all that they knew of me because I had suddenly revealed my recent streak of armed robberies, but when people seem to re-evaluate our relationship in a matter of seconds because of my age, I am hardly amused.
Last Friday was my birthday and, as usual, I treated it as just another day. I was at a bar in Berlin with two friends who presented me with a brownie topped with 3 candles. It was a sweet gesture made even sweeter by the fact that they didn't sing nor enlist others in the bar to do so. Yet a couple of days later, after sifting through birthday greetings posted on my Facebook page, I felt a familiar pang of age-awareness and immediately began to prepare my defense. "I'm not that old. There are plenty of people -- really cool people -- and really cool things that are older than me. Tons of them!" I eventually started jotting these things down and by the time I got to 25 items, I was giggling with anticipation of the next unsuspecting age inquirer.
25 Things That Are Older Than Me (and some are pretty cool):
The Bible
Legos
Air travel
The lightbulb
NASA
Chapstick
Masking tape
Alaska’s statehood
Batman
Sudoku
The Staten Island Ferry
The curling iron
Cheerios
The NFL
the electric guitar
Internal combustion engines
Yahtzee
anesthesia
the Wizard of Oz
Kool-Aid
Neon lights
Jazz
Harley-Davidson motorcycles
air conditioning
Pez