A Post In My Final Hours as "A Cool & Interesting" Shopper

(Look for a somewhat funnier, better proofread, and less dour version of this post in Malicious Bitch soon!)

While I am very happy to get a couple of days to spend with April in order to celebrate my birthday and in spite of all of the most excellent birthday wishes I've received (and they ARE appreciated, despite the remainder of this post), I am fairly sure I'll not have all that "happy" a birthday.

Yes, we'll probably go some place fun and that will be relaxing and enjoyable. However, I am not at all happy with turning 35. This is not some sort of age shock thing. I just don't like the whole idea.

I'm already a good 5 years older than I ever expected to live. I used to have horrific and extremely detailed dreams about my own death. They've been going on for about as long as I can remember and before I turned 30, there were many indications within the dreams that my demise would happen on or before my 30th birthday.

When I turned 30 without any sort of Reaper house call, I was surprised. Even though my wife called me in Idaho (I was working there for the summer at Silverwood Theme Park) and left a message on my machine chanting "Renew! Renew! Renew!" (she's one funny lady!), I did not find my end. Ah well, there's always 31.

Tomorrow I turn 35.

35 should be better than it is. It isn't. I'll be no more successful or happy than I was at 18, 21, 30, etc.. I am merely older, heavier, and possibly a bit wiser, even though I still continue to make wildly stupid mistakes about very important things.

The only people that believe 35 is "young" are people 36 and older and people who are 33 and trying to over-compensate for knowing they'll be old in a couple of years. Folks who are actually there now that they're out of the game and OLD. The only saving grace is that if I get squashed by a car or eaten by a rabid penguin & killed tomorrow, most people will agree that I was "too young to die".

At 35, people start telling you how good you look for your age, assuming you look good for your age in the first place.

35 is the year when I am officially insignificant with regard to how the real world operates. I am out of the cool shopping & marketing demographic. No products, TV shows, movies, or music will be targeted towards me and if it were, nobody else would give a shit. My opinion and buying power does not interest anyone in the cool world. People who are 35 are no longer important, unless we have lots of money and many small babies. I have neither. I'm just 35 and poor.

The life expectancy of the average Martello male is between 64-70 years old. A few have gone on longer, but not many. I am not in a mid-life crisis. I was middle-aged three years ago!

More importantly, things start malfunctioning automatically after 35. The body breaks down and chunks of Andy will spontaneously fall off of me without warning and without any regard for whether or not I have any freakin' health insurance, which reminds me...

Health insurance is much harder to get after you turn 35.

After 35, people are expected to accept the fact that since you are now older, you will one day soon have to take some sort of prescription medication for the rest of your life, mostly because of the parts falling off thing. I equate daily medication with death, especially since I watched my dad go from a few scant pills a day (to maintain his post-35 diabetes) to being a walking-talking pharmacy. Aside from some allergy meds and the birth control pill, I don't know anyone taking regular meds for something that I actually expect to live a longer life thanks to those pills. Thankfully I have no health insurance and won't be going to the doctor to get my mandatory prescription for anything any time soon. And speaking of doctors...

After 35, doctors feel it is their right and their duty to poke and prod in many more uncomfortable places, usually without asking you if you'd like to be poked and/or prodded. Buy me some dinner first you BMW-driving pervert!

I have never looked good naked or in a bathing suit. At 35 I look absolutely dreadful. Even if I were disciplined enough to work out and eat right, trying to spruce up the old physique would be akin to asking the "Queer Eye" guys to fix up Thunderdome. (Wow, has anyone featured a Mad Max AND a "Logan's Run" reference in a blog to date?)

What do I have to look forward to at 35?

• Someday, some political party or candidate will really want my vote and do something to court my attention.
• I'll get a ton of "Over the Hill" crap in five years.
• I can start acting way more superior than I already do if I make it to 50 or older....Because I'll be so damned smart and better than all the young punks who are clearly wasting their youth by trodding upon my damned LAWN!
• While I can't date an 18-24 year old girl now, thanks to marriage and the "creepy factor", I am expected to do so sometime after 40 and that could be great fun.
• I'm told, at some point I will own a Corvette or a vintage Mustang.

What do I have to be proud of at 35?

• I have never moved back home with the parents. I've borrowed a helluva lot of cash from everyone in the family to avoid doing so, but it's something, right?
• I have all of my hair, and even some new hair in exciting places!
• In my 20 years in show-biz I have never worked as a waiter.
• My wife & family love me.
• I have never lived in Ohio. I'm the only one in the family to make that claim. OK, it really isn't all that much, but I was feeling lousy about not having something else to mention.

Right about here is the part where all the older folks tell me the lies they've told themselves about life being what you make of it and age being a relative thing and all that crap. Fuck you! You're old too! In fact, if you're telling me about the greatness of being 35 and the fun to come, you're older than me! You were just as ornery about this shit as I am now. I don't want your clarity or insight because that would then mean I made it to YOUR AGE! Geez-O-Pete, do I want to get any older? Fuck NO! I'm already pissed about 35. Haven't you been reading anything?

Here's the news! I have done some fun things, but pretty much all of the things I'd hoped to accomplish haven't happened and likely wont' happen now. Sure I have wasted a lot of time with a slothful pursuit of achievement, but still, the biological clock for personal and professional goals has gone off with no snooze bar hits left. Don't give me the self-fulfilling prophecy crap either because we all know there aren't all that many 35 and older success stories in entertainment, publishing, and the like. Maybe in publishing, but most of those folks had jobs that could sustain a career of submitting work for years without any success. I don't have that luxury.

So there's what I've got waiting for me tomorrow. Well, that, and a few presents that I don't deserve. I've been told I'll be getting some kind of birthday sex, so I've got that going for me.

Regardless, I've got to deal with the fact that even after 20 years of being an entertainer, I'm still fretting about the rent in the lean months, it will likely rain at some point (it almost ALWAYS rains on my birthday), and traffic will probably suck.

Marty Feldman (Igor): "Could be worse. Could be raining. "

[Thuder clasp heard. Rain falls]