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24 November, 2005
On Aging

One sure sign that you're aging is the incomprehensible, irresistible desire to write a column about signs that you're aging.

Perhaps another is asking your parents for a super-fancy brand-name electronic bathroom scale that tracks your weight, body mass index, ratio of water-to-beer intake, number of episodes of The X-Files watched on DVD, and general degree of commitment to actual weight loss.

Of course, I didn't ask for the scale. My wife did. For her birthday. You know how women are. Of course, I step on the scale far more frequently than she does. (It's fun, okay? When you first step on it, these little munchkins show up on the display telling you which foot you're leaning on more, so I try to get them perfectly aligned, like it's a video game. So maybe I haven't grown up as much as I thought.)

Speaking of The X-Files, I've definitely noticed a change in my fashion taste. These days I think Fox Mulder looks really sharp in his suit and patented FBI Alienchaser model (tm) trenchcoat. I never thought I'd say it, but that guy makes a suit look good.

I think getting excited about the prospect in my near future of sleeping more then seven consecutive hours maybe be a sign of aging. I used to resist sleep like a teenager resists authority. Now my pillow is a sweet, sweet friend that I miss dearly for most of the day, because I'm swamped with work and plagued with what the all-night party kids are slangily calling "sleep depo". (Or was it "sleep depot"?) In fact, I'm having fond thoughts of my pillow right now. I sure miss it. Of course, if I was truly grown up, I'd have written this column before the late-night last minute.

I listen to more jazz music these days. Does that mean I'm getting older? Or is it just that young jazz fans are simply annoying? I do still like heavy metal. But only the heavy metal that was new when I was younger. I knew I was becoming a grumpy old man when I first said "Music these days is terrible. Music hasn't been good since 1998." Wow. That was a shock.

But the biggest sign of aging that I've shown lately is my use of the word "equity". Applied to myself. Ugh. A university friend recently lamented that, in my college days, I used to seem to have a funk music soundtrack following me around wherever I went. "Yes," I argued, "but soon I will have equity."

Indeed, we are on the very verge of buying a condo. The pragmatism of paying myself instead of paying a landlord has become a siren song. Indeed, that lacks the romance of youth. But it also lacks the poverty of youth.

Don't get me wrong. I still practice Buy Nothing Day, recycle obsessively, put a jar of marbles in the toilet to reduce water use, ride my bike almost everywhere, host a show at a campus radio station, promote alternative energy, drive an old used car, love Homestar Runner, and so on. But how can one justify thinking of the earth's future if one isn't thinking of one's own?

The owner of a company I contract to regularly recently complemented me on how calmly I was handling the tidal wave of work I've experienced lately, which includes volunteering and the various tasks involved with real estate deals.

Perhaps that's the surest sign of aging: an increased aptitude for calmness. And I believe it comes from finally being mature enough to get my ducks in a row.

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