Shuffling towards geezerdom

A beautiful, wet Sunday here on the lake. I got the lawn mowed yesterday just before the rain started. And I was inordinately happy that I managed to get this one over on mother nature until it occurred to me that "lawn pride" is just one more sign that my geezerdom is not just close, but may well have arrived. This entire past week seemed filled with such portentous signs:

• I thought my workshops down in Olathe, Kansas, were going pretty well. Until I noticed one lunchtime that I had given the entire morning's workshop with two large coffee stains on the front of my white dress shirt. While I do remember drinking coffee that morning, I don't remember there being any spillage. Please tell me I haven't become one of those pathetic old men who routinely sport stained clothes, miss great swatches of whiskers shaving, and wear their trousers with an over-the-belly at the waist and high-water at the cuff look.
  
• I appreciated Will Richardson's Note to Myself blog entry about unplugging and doing things more important than blogging.
  
• Which one needed babysitting last Memorial Day weekend? The 18 month old or his grandfather?

• I am re-reading Neal Stephenson's book Snow Crash. When the LWW asked if I liked it as well the second time, I couldn't really tell her since I remembered so little about it from the first reading. It is a great book that is prescient about MUVE's, global information systems and the privatization of government services.
  
• I spent yesterday morning doing helping my Kiwanis Club clean the trash out of our two-mile section of road ditch just south of Mankato. Who'd of thunk it would be so much fun to do a civic-minded volunteer program with these codgers? And then to join them at the coffee shop afterward to grouch about the piggishness of the human race?

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• At least I got to a party populated by glamorous, witty people on Saturday night at a beautiful beach house. Oh, yeah, it was in Second Life and I attended wearing my bathrobe and in my recliner . (Thanks to Victoria and Viparious for the nice time.)

 

So how does the old expression go again - "Getting old's a bitch... but it beats the alternative"?

 

I remember social anthropologist Jennifer James once explain why old people have a "the world's going to hell in a hand basket" mentality. At some point, all of us recognize our own mortality and we find it easier to acknowledge if we think we are leaving a world that is getting worse rather than better. At least I am not there yet - I think the world's still getting better. Not fast enough for sure, but better.

 

And there are some definite advantages to getting older, believe it or not.

• If one enjoys watching young women, one's definition of "young" encompasses a vastly larger percentage of the population.
• There seem to be fewer and fewer "hills worth dying on" at work. That leaves one time and energy to engage in the important things.
  
• One can relax knowing that one's potential for becoming a professional athlete, musician or porn star are long past.
  
• It's a pleasant change to worry more about the lack of time than the lack of money in one's life.
• In athletic events, one doesn't have to finish first, just finish, for people to be astounded.
• It's fun to tease one's spouse about all the mailings she's getting from AARP.
• Shoes can be purchases based on comfort, not looks. (Oh, I guess I have always done that.
  
• One word: Grandchildren.
• Mid-life crisis  - been there, done that. Moving on.
  
• With all one's children over 21, one is responsible only for one's own mistakes.
• One is expected to complain about one's aches and pains.
  

So far this aging thing, I'm happy to say, has been a lot more good than bad. I hope to be a problem to others for at least another 20 years.

Comments

[diane]

...and as I dip my toe into the vast ocean of cyberspace, people (students) think I'm amazing for my spirit of adventure rather than backward for not being quite up to 21st century standards!

[Doug Johnson]

Hi Diane,

I do think kids appreciate any effort we make in working with technology and are willing to help. I like the attitude of your statement. Focus on the positive!

All the very best and thanks for writing,

Doug