2002-10-07

What do you MEAN I'm not 15?

I had a number of "what do you MEAN I'm not (insert age here) anymore?!" moments over the course of several days, ridiculous considering I'm not what you'd call especially old. I've always never quite gotten people who make a big show of letting their heads sink into their hands, groaning all the while, when someone younger mentions, say, that they just "discovered" Pere Ubu, and they're friggin' amazing, dude.

First, I had a "what do you MEAN I'm not 17 anymore?!" moment whilst flipping through the channels and stumbling upon that gender-reversed, blatant "Pretty In Pink" wanna-be, "Some Kind of Wonderful." It's really quite delightfully dreadful in that Hughes-ian "rich kids in rumpled, pastel linen = bad; working class kids with New Order posters on their homey, lived-in-looking bedroom walls = good" kind of way. Naturally I let myself get good and sucked into it, clutching a throw pillow and whining while the houseboy went on at length about Eric Stoltz's dubious sex appeal: "My GOD! He is absolutely hideous!"

"He is NOT."

"He IS. He's like....Christ, he's like a bad amalgamation of other people's facial features...."

"Shut up! Shut up! SHUT UP!"

Really. Some days I cannot believe that I am not in high school anymore. I sit at my desk in my cubicle and I want to tell people I'm in the 10th grade when I am introduced. I can't believe that I'm sitting here instead of cutting gym to sit in the band room and teach myself "October" on the piano. What do you MEAN I'm not 15 anymore?!

I had a "what do you MEAN I'm not 24 anymore?!" moment on Friday, when I was at the Kirkland for the Barnies reunion show/Mikey Dee's birthday party. I mean, not only was I now in my 30's and watching the Barnies, I was sober and watching the Barnies, with no danger of running into Avram or Pete on the subway the next day and wondering what I'd said to them. That was pretty okay....great, as a matter of fact.

And last night it all came full circle as I sat with a bowl of popcorn and the houseboy, watching "Mildred Pierce" for the eleventy-seven billionth time ("My mother: a WAITRESS.") and feeling exquisitely comfortable in my own 32-year-old skin.

lisamcc at 1:22 p.m.

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