Here’s my overdue musing on yet another birthday. I can’t believe I’m completely easing into total decrepitude, but 49 is a grown-up, fucking age anyway you slice it.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, I ain’t dead yet.<\/p>\n
Maybe it’s the baby boomers, of which I think I am one, tail end of a generation and all that. After all dear old dad was in Fort Lee, NJ during the big one, WW2. But, perhaps the baby boomers and their clinging to the old ways of listening to electric guitars, hot-tubbing and refusing to give up capital F Fun really are making a dent in how aging is perceived. 60 is the new 30 and all.<\/p>\n
What I realize, as I refuse to go gentle into that good night, is that people really do have strong ideas or pictures in their heads of what middle age looks like. In the golden oldie days of my hitting comedy clubs night after night, I had a joke about being 40 and it not being a compliment if someone tags a remark with “for your age,” as in “You look great! For your age.”<\/p>\n
In other words, I’m not sure I’m completely digging all of the times that folks say to me (and to M.) that we don’t look our age. Baby, this right here, this chubby body and all, this is what 49 looks like.<\/p>\n
I know it’s meant well and maybe it’s true. After all I know a chick about 6 months younger than me who rocks the mom jeans and acrylic sweaters. But, if you look at her face, she’s not actually decrepit either.<\/p>\n
For fuck’s sake, I don’t really know anyone under the age of 90 who looks like the Crypt Keeper, so why is that our image? I would totally make out with Helen Mirren.<\/p>\n
And with all of that, my secret will be the launch of the upcoming “Forever 49,” a store for normal people. My jeans will be old school, the way jeans were meant to be, with zippers that are not so short and low they end at your clit. T-shirts will be long enough to not just cover your belly button but reach your hips. More simply, clothes will go back to fitting you well and covering your muffin top, not create a whole other roll.<\/p>\n
Here’s to another fucking decade of living. And, when the wrinkles catch up, I’ll just wear my sunglasses indoors.<\/p>\n