Monday 7 March 2011

like a coin that won't get tossed....

Today I reach the grand old age of 37.

To celebrate, I got up, made a pack lunch that included a cheese roll, a tuna roll, some carrots and a pack of Frazzles and I went to work. Later on, I plan to have my tea in front of the telly and to read my book. It's just another day.

....well, to be fair, it's not been just another day: to mark the occasion, C. baked me a bunch of cakes to take into the office to share with my colleagues (sour cherry and chesnut brownies, pear and ginger muffins and a Viennese poppy seed cake - all delicious, obviously). And after I've had my tea, I'm going to go out for birthday drinks with some dear friends.... so perhaps not quite like every other day, but still reasonably sedate.

Frankly, that's just the way I like it.

I keep catching myself saying things that prove that I'm old. I genuinely do not understand the point of those saggy-arsed trousers that cause people to walk with a waddle and to show their pants. They ARE ridiculous, but every time I say as much, I'm acutely aware that I'm showing my age. Why on earth should a 37 year old man understand those trousers? I'm pretty sure that the only thing weirder than a 37 year old man "getting" those trousers would be a 37 year old man *wearing* those trousers....

Still, as Dylan Thomas said:

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

...but as Thomas himself was said to have died of an "acute insult to the brain" after drinking 18 straight whiskies, I think it's fair to say that he practiced what he preached (he was only 39 at the time, mind, which hardly seems like the close of day to me...although perhaps in a couple of years, it will).

Why just accept ridiculous trousers? I could let them go with a shrug, but they are ridiculous and as long as I'm alive, it's worth saying as much.  Age has got nothing to do with it.

I remember, at some point in the 1980s, working out how old I was going to be in the year 2000 and being appalled at how OLD 26 was.

Ha!

I like Tom Baker's approach to ageing: "The older I get, the older old is".

37 is no age.  I'm not dead yet.

2 comments:

  1. Happy birthday! Quiet birthdays are the best I think. Enjoy. :0)

    Baggy, sagging pants *are* ridiculous. On a happier note, I recently heard that they're going out of style. One can only hope.

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  2. I like Tom Baker's approach to most things. Hadn't heard that particular quote before.

    Happy Birthday!

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