Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Getting older

One of the problems with getting older is that you are no longer young.

It's not only you that's old: your lifetsyle is old, your clothes are old, your ideas are old. Dressing young and acting young only makes you look ridiculous.

Several generations back, we turned physical attractiveness from an attribute –– like shoe size or hair color –– into a virtue –– like honesty or compassion. Then we did it for youth as well.

The rest of us are the old people, the boring people, the stupid people. We're the bad people. I was old, boring and stupid as a TV reporter when I hit forty. Now I'm old, boring and stupid for everything else.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

My sister's 89-year old French grandmother-in-law wears hiphugger jeans and halter tops. SHE GETS AWAY WITH IT as most European women do. It may be America, not you.

mcarp said...

I'm just grumpy because I've suddenly hit a point where I really need to skew a demo about twenty years younger than I am, and I don't think it's even possible.

Anonymous said...

You're only as old as the women who will allow you to grope them.

Anonymous said...

What, do tell, is "skew a demo"? I'd like to skrew a demo-crat but I can't find one old enough to come to me, run to me, do and be done with me.

mcarp said...

To 'skew a demo' (or 'demographic' means to appeal to a preponderance of a certain kind of people.

TV news always hopes to skew, at least around here, white vain superficial born again Christians age 18-35 who haven't maxed out their credit cards yet.

That is not the demo I need to skew.

I would be in really great shape right now if I was about 30, weighed 140 or so, could wear those slim-cut black Lycra dress shirts, could mousse my hair into an unmoveable just-out-of-bed tousle, and wore skinny eyeglasses such as are now drifting out of fashion on the coasts but are still hip and edgy around here.

In short, I need to morph into a sharp, young and hip downtown ad agency metrosexual and stop being a dumpy, puffy-eyed 53-year-old minivan owner.

Anonymous said...

:::In short, I need to morph into a sharp, young and hip downtown ad agency metrosexual and stop being a dumpy, puffy-eyed 53-year-old minivan owner.:::

Didja ever get a close look at Picasso?

His looks didn't seem to hurt him none.

Woody Allen?

Same-same.

You get the drift.

Anonymous said...

be careful what you ask for...you just might get it.

blogblah!!!