[Note: Using an original post is fresh, using it as second time is lazy, using it a third time, though, and it becomes a tradition. This entry, therefore, is officially my birthday tradition.]
Today is my 37th birthday and so I will celebrate this milestone in my life the way I do every year: by checking the life expectancy calculator to see how much longer I have to live. It turns out that if all goes well I can expect to be around for about 39.5 more years. At this point I have almost officially reached the point of being “middle-aged.” Unfortunately, I am totally unprepared for my mid-life crisis.
The typical mid-life crises cliches aren't very helpful. My wife is already out of my league (31, good-looking, and makes more money than I do) so the idea of trading her in for a trophy wife isn’t a plausible option. I can’t simply dump my job in order to go “find myself.” I tried that two years ago and within a week I found myself broke and with a new job. I’m also too poor to afford a sports car so it appears I’ll be spending my mid-life crises tooling around town in a Dodge Neon.
Obviously, I'm off to a bad start.
While I figure out what to do next, I’ve decided to take stock of my life by reviewing what I’ve learned over the past three and a half decades. Mining my past for nuggets of wisdom, however, has been a slow process: So far I’ve only made it back one week:
Apology for the week: I want to begin by apologizing for all of the grammatical errors, slapdash reasoning, and sloppy writing in my recent posts. Unfortunately, I wrote them after taking some cold medication, a mistake I won't make in the future. In fact, from now on, I’ve decided only to take cold medicine when I actually have a cold.
Medical lesson of the week: After the age of 30, men should perform regular self-exams for testicular cancer.
Addendum to medical lesson: While it might appear reasonable to take advantage of time that is otherwise being wasted, performing the exam while standing in checkout line at the supermarket turns out not to be such a good idea.
Paradoxical attraction of the week: While I don't find long, poufy hair, denim skirts, or white ankle socks with sneakers particularly appealing, I still think Pentecostal chicks are hot.
Life-altering purchase of the week: Tongue scrapper (bought at Wal-Mart for $2.50).
Anatomical discovery of the week: I found that when the brownish/black gunk was scraped off, my tongue has a reddish-pink hue.
Relationship discovery of the week: Scraping the bad-breath causing bacteria off my tongue has improved all my personal relationships.
Relationship discovery of the week #2: Carrying the brownish/black gunk I scrapped off my tongue in a plastic bag and showing it to everyone I meet has had a surprisingly detrimental effect on all my relationships.
Most disappointing purchase of the week: FlowBee Precision Haircutting System ($59.99 on the Internet). While the vacuum attachments are long enough, the device doesn't work well on back hair.
Important clarification of the week: If your barber misunderstands you and thinks you said, “Can you trim the back of my hair?” when you really said, “Can you trim my back hair?” it will lead to a lot of yelling, comb-waving, and screams of, “Put your shirt back on, ya freak!”
Random thought of the week: Monkeys are always funny. They are to comedy what Jerry Lewis is to the French. Only monkeys are less hairy (than the French, not Jerry Lewis).
Foreign Affairs Lesson of the Week: Saying that you “despise the French” will tick off a lot of foreigners and get you called a xenophobe (even if you don’t really fear xenos).
Foreign Affairs Lesson of the Week (Part II): If you stand up to the Francolphiles they will, like the French, always surrender.
Musical lesson of the week: If you listen carefully and with an open mind to rap-metal music you find that it really does suck as bad as you always thought it did.
Lesson about women that I (re)learned this week: When women say that the quality they prefer in a man is a “sense of humor,” what they mean is they prefer a man who looks like Brad Pitt.
Lesson about men that I (re)learned this week: The type of man who complains that women prefer to date jerks is both (a) absolutely correct and (b) a total wuss.
Most depressing though I had this past week: I drive a Dodge Neon.
Second most depressing thought I had this past week: 39.5 years is not enough time to read all of the books I now have, much less all the books that I will buy with the Barnes and Noble gift certificate that my wife will “surprise” me with today.
Fortunately, I still have 1.75 years to work on it before my mid-life crisis officially begins.
[By the way, Happy Birthday to Kevin T. Keith from Lean Left. We share a birthday, an interest in bioethics, and a wicked scar from a barfight with some sorority girls. Other than that we have absolutely nothing in common.]
1
Congratulation on your birthday and the all those great life lessons you learned this past week. I discovered your website probably less than a month ago, and you've already had a great influence on me.
For the record, I just turned 33 (about two weeks ago) and am expected to live 59 more years. Therefore, I might not take all of your lessons to heart. Please forgive me of any offense.
I hope the remaining years of your life are productive and joyful.
posted on 08.18.2006 12:35 AM2
I wonder if the "Mid-Life Crisis" isn't something of a myth. I'm 47, and I don't recall having had one. Maybe I'm a late bloomer. Or late boomer. I did change careers around age 40, but that was more a practical move than one precipitated by a crisis.
Happy birthday, Joe. It sounds as if you are doing well for yourself. Perhaps that is the key to sidestepping the mid-life crisis.
posted on 08.18.2006 6:43 AM4
You think you're "old" now?
My mid-life crisis was to buy a Mercedes (used & older, of course) and start grad school. Finally.
(You can ask my sister about my age.)
Collin
http://evangelicalperspective.blogspot.com
posted on 08.18.2006 7:37 AM5
I got to 39 and couldn't figure out why I felt so much like I did when I was 14 (with a driver's license and a mortgage, minus the zits). Nothing as dramatic as OCS or TBS. Maybe more like a personal, six month long extended version of suffering through a Covey 7 Habits course. Called my dad up. No Oprah moments, but it was nice to know he went through something similar in his day (though neither of us were very specific about the whole thing).
Fishing helps.
Grace and peace (and S/F)
db
6
Advice from someone who has been there, and survived:
1. If you want to feel needed, ditch the Neon and get a pickup. Everyone you know will need help moving something.
2. If you want to really feel needed, get a trailor for your pickup. The opportunities to serve your fellow man will increase geometrically. Besides, a truck and a trailer are quite manly.
3. Forget fishing (sorry, Don). Learn to sail. If you already know how to sail, sail more. No one ever wrote a book about fishing around the world. Read some of the adventures about sailing around the world. Try Maiden Voyage first. Great story.
4. Start working on your balance, physically speaking. Jump rope. Skateboard if you have to. Surf if you can. You will be very unpleasantly surprised with how fast your balance and strength will go. Entropy is the natural state for middle aged me. Fight it to the end. Even when it kills you, keep fighting.
5. Start working on balance on the rest of your life. You will be very unpleasantly surprised with how fast your fears and prejudices will make decisions for you.
6. You haven't mentioned grandchildren. Get some. Grandchildren give us hope that all of the mistakes we made with our childred can be corrected in our grandchildren. Besides, they love us because they don't know how we screwed up. The smile of a grandchild is like rain in Texas, which we really need right now. It's a beautiful thing.
7. Learn to make as many things, grow as many things, do as many things for yourself as you can. Consumerism is easy. Accomplishment is not.
And if you didn't know how old you are, how old would you be? Live like it.
Happy birthday.
posted on 08.18.2006 9:05 AM7
Happy Birthday to us, Joe.
Maybe it'll get better.
posted on 08.18.2006 9:08 AM8
Happy birthday Joe:
For the record I'm 54 and still trying to decide what I want to be when I grow up!
posted on 08.18.2006 9:27 AM9
Happy Birthday Joe.
from a guy who drives a geo metro, I feel your pain! However I've noticed some of the used sports cars make it to the "thrifty" pages in newspapers and web sites so there is hope.
posted on 08.18.2006 9:48 AM10
Happy Birthday Joe and Kevin!
Others celebrating a birthday today:
Rosalynn Carter (79 years old)
Roman Polanski (73)
Robert Redford (70)
Patrick Swayze (54)
Edward Norton (37)
Christian Slater (37)
Others born on this day, but since deceased:
Virginia Dare (1587) first English child born in the Americas
Meriwether Lewis (1774) of Lewis & Clark
Caspar Weinberger (1917)
Other important event on this day - passage of 19th Amendment, guaranteeing female suffrage, in 1920.
posted on 08.18.2006 9:58 AM11
Scott,
I think you've started something.
Here's the idea:
Everyone knows you can adopt children.
So let's (at least let's let Joe) take the next step.
Adopt grandchildren.
Might be an interesting quandry for the judge & lawyers. :)
Collin
http://evangelicalperspective.blogspot.com
posted on 08.18.2006 10:05 AM12
Happy birthday, and welcome to 37! I hope it'll be as good a year for you as it has been for me. :)
posted on 08.18.2006 2:08 PM13
Happy Birthday, Joe. May the Lord grant you the blessing of returning to His country (Texas) at some point in the next 37 years.
posted on 08.18.2006 4:14 PM14
Happy Birthday Joe. And thanks for reminding me that, just as I'm late for everything else I'm late for my mid-life crisis, being 43. Besides, being a presbyterian preacher I'm not allowed to have a mid-life crisis unless I can find warrant for one in the Westminster Confession and it is approved by a committee of presbytery by a 2/3 margin.
posted on 08.18.2006 6:44 PM15
As a fellow 37 year old I sympathize entirely.
Matt
eclectic itchings
16
Happy Birthday Joe!
I hope it's a joyous one.
I continue to appreciate your blog, although I don't comment much.
17
Dang skippy that Pentecostal chicks are hot. Happy Birthday! Enjoy your time before the midlife crisis. I am preparing for my quarter-life crisis next month. No, seriously. I don't want to turn 25. It's all downhill from there.
posted on 08.19.2006 7:17 AM18
Your first trackback is not to Wonkette's mention of your birthday posting but to their citation just a few lines above it. You could probably correct it without much trouble.
posted on 08.19.2006 8:21 AM19
I bought my nephew's electric guitar and started doing open water swims. You have got a few years before it really hits. Bill (47 in Oct)
posted on 08.20.2006 6:25 PM20
I've been here too long...I remember this post from last year.
posted on 08.21.2006 1:19 PM