March 21, 2006

• Snakes.... on a plane... /derail
• You know what they say in baseball - you're only as young as you field. Take my Koko - please!
• You're only as old as you feel, fly, but please remember: hot pants don't look good on anyone.
• Petebest, get out of my brain!!
• Is there a Doctor in the house? We have a Petebest-doctomy over here in thread 11415..... This is a very interesting question fly. I'm almost hitting 35 (feel age only 25 though - he such a cutie) and I keep waiting for the moment when I will think of myself as a "grown up". One of my close friends is having trouble coming to terms with her approaching 40th Birthday - scarily enough she is about the only one who will go to game centers and play with me. While back home in Australia I met a number of 60-something travellers (who called themselves the "Grey Nomads") I think now that there is no middle aged - you just go from being young to suddenly not being.
• *still feels all proud and grownup to have own car keys - at 47* Pity they're all plastic and pastel-coloured, rattling on a chain.
• Gomi question part posed because a 'friend' pointed out to me that this is my last birthday wothout a ******3***** in frrnt of it THANK YOU SO MUCH. Not really though - i am still having dificulties coming to terms with 'adult' and responsible' guess it due to my lack of children but just wondering about others points of view - now if i can just get my 80 year old mother to stop climbing ladders and worrying about hip surgery for her...........
• Ugh Koko no way hot pants on this bod - oh and for you and Petebest - trading the younger man in for something even younger i think you know - go a step further. Figured when i hit 32 i'd start goin backwards so probably stuffd the maths but anyone male who is 25 this year *tongue so seriously planted in cheek will nedd surgery to remove.....*
• i am still having dificulties coming to terms with 'adult' and responsible' ... but just wondering about others points of view No we all think you're pretty childish too.
• Upon more reflection... "middle aged" pretty much implies "the point at which you are halfway through your life". I find this very confusing because you just don't know the time span for that. One comment I have heard repeated many times after losing my dad at 55 years old, and then my Mum at 54, is "They were so young!". I guess too for me they certainly never seemed to be old people - as for middle aged I guess - although they certainly didn't come across as the stereotype (Mum usually wore hip clothes, and Dad was playing gigs right up to the end even though he had lung cancer). So if genetics plays a role - then I'm already too late for my bloody mid-life crisis even. Bugger it.
• I don't think there was ever a definition for middle aged, so I don't understand the 'new' middle aged aspect to the question. Teenagers and twentys always think 30s and 40s are old or middle aged...but when they get there they discover that they were wrong. When I was online dating, I noticed that women in my target age range (early 30's to early 40's) came in two categories - those who looked and acted 5-10 years younger than they were (i.e. still young), and those who looked and acted 5-10 years older than they were (i.e. 'middle-aged'). You really are as young as you feel. As for the plastic surgery comments: I consider cosmetic surgery to be no different than piercings and tattoos. They're just procedures to make you look the way you want to look.
• I'm 36 and I play computer RPGs and have no kids or car, and I constantly post immature comments for the "amusement" of other monkeys. But I have back and neck problems, and my "woman hormones" are starting to do that horrible "changing" thing. But I cannot stress anough about the hot pants ...
• =enough
• Geez thanks Quid *blushes*finally vindication ..... A quid quote.... actually - I've blushed and thank you
• Just as long as you don't start wearing hot pants.
• Koko I seriously love you even though i am femn!!! and you send me emails asking me to reconsider which are always fair!!!!!!
• Or a speedo. Or worse.
• AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH! fish tick! No banana for you!
• Also, no hot pants on your 80yo mom, when she is climbing a ladder.
• Koko, quit coming on to me. You too, quid.
• Fly, I just turned 38 on friday. I am married, and happily childless, I am also told I barely look 30 in gently lighting (woohoo!!) Your question highlights the interesting social phenomenon we perceive, in post-industrial economies at least, of an extended period of youthful adulthood, or at least some facsimile thereof. A combination of factors: improved health, ubiquity of plastic surgery, distorted and unrealistic images portrayed by media. All contrive to create a new idea about what 50, for instance, should look like (they don't REALLY address what it should act like, though, do they?) That said, I hope you never act middle aged!! Be every bit as much the responsible adult as you must be, and not a micron more!!! pay the bills, then play with dirt. Eat your vegetables, but follow the 'see food' diet also :) ALL of this stuff is social construct (IMoh-so-f*ckingHO) so there is no reason to rewrite the rules to sutureself ;)
• quid, quit coming on petebest...ew!
• Rocket there kinda was - middle aged used to be about mid thirties to forties - and i know i used to feel so sorry for the people that had to stay 'young' to be there. For the first time in my life I am 'cheating' and dying my hair from the roots...... Input fem monks PLEASE!!!! Found a photo of my mother at age 42 OK still a way off but........besides she went grey early cos she had the worlds nost obnoxious children to deal with -....... me for 1
• Colouring your hair isn't cheating hon. Now having poison injected into your face to remove lines is a whole other matter.
• "Middle-aged" = X + 10, where "X" is equal to "whatever age you currently are".
• Hey Earwax my 80-yo mum has a way better body than i do im fat she's not - but i do have better ahem - luggage in the sternum area!! Medusa aint no way in hell I will ever grow up to fit a social construct!!! believe me!!
• Gomi where exactly the hell are you rite now?
• Oh and PS for a fem - the older you you feel the younger the man you find.............
• On my couch. Trying to work on a site. Not focusing well. At 2:30am. In a coastal town in Japan.
• Something weird happened to me after I turned 30. I actually stopped keeping track of the years. It just didn't matter anymore. I'd spent so long knowing how old I was, looking forward to the next milestone, and now I can't be bothered to keep up with the current number. When I am asked, I have to stop and do the math. I honestly don't remember. I don't think of myself as "middle age," but rather "old enough to know better."
• You can't know your middle age until your laying in the ground....then you just divide your age by two. Easy Peasy
• Hmm -- now who should I consider the trusted authority on Hot Pants: Koko, or Soul Brother Number One Sorry, Koko. Hot Pants in the 'Peg, sure, you're right on that. Hot Pants in general, I still dig that mess! HeeeEEEEEaaaAAAAAeeEEAAYY!!! *does funky chicken, aaawl nite long*
• *does funky chicken, aaawl nite long* on a ladder!
• that thing about the younger guys is true. I think the correct mathematical formula may be the point at which you are primarily attracted to those 1/2 yr present age....and yes, I really wants me some 19yo action....please???
• Middle aged is when you turn 35.
• and I have been 'adicted to the bottle' since 19 or so...hairdye is a vocation, a lifestyle choice, a committment. it has nothing to do with age, it has to do with fabulosity...
• So, Koko, lemme get this straight. I've bought my hotpants, and put them on like you said. Now what do I do?
• and I CANNOT fooking spell today...
• "I've bought my hotpants, and put them on like you said. Now what do I do?" *spins around* Hawt Pants! Ain't Hawt Pants SWEET! Count me off! Onetwothreefawr! *slides from side to side* Puttem on, sista! Hawt Pants only work when you work 'em! Goo' GAWD! *jumps up, falls back into splits* HeeEEEEaaaaeeeAAAAaaaAAAeeYY!
• If you are at work, do NOT do a Google Image Search for hotpants. Whoooooooooo. Down, big fella.
• And RalphTheDog finally reveals his horse fetish... from hotpants GIS
• I am 36, and I used to think that would be pretty old or at least middle-aged. I certainly thought that my cock would have stopped growing. It has not, and I have no idea what to do.
• Marry it off to a giant hen, I guess.
• BOK!
• I've bought my hotpants, and put them on like you said. Now what do I do? Move to Miami. There's nothing more you can do.
• Use it for good.
• Hot Pants are they the good? Use this the algorithm! Temperature less than 10,000 C? Okay, buns warm!
• I've always found the expression "a woman of a certain age" intriguing and rather sexy.
• *throws towel over Capt. Renault, leads him off-thread*
• I've always looked at it this way: 20-40 young adult 40-60 middle aged 60-80 "senior" 80+ fucking ancient (p.s. I am 42 and look GREAT in hotpants)
• You hotpants-wearing people will be the death of me. DON'T LISTEN TO THEM FLY - LOOK AT ME. FOCUS!
• *shakes booty, looks fabulous*
• If you're as old as you feel I should have been put under glass in a museum at 21. I remember a line from Babylon 5 that summed it up: "I didn't grow up; I grew old." 21 is about the age I stopped weraing hot pants, too. Go figger.
• *throws towel over Capt. Renault, leads him off-thread* *shakes off towel, petebest* I neahd notone nottwo but THREE counts for a princess of hawt pants -- Miss CATHERINE BACH! *bompbompbomp!* I neahd notone nottwo but THREE counts for a princess of hawt pants -- Miss PAM GRIER! *bompbompbomp!* I neahd notone nottwo but THREE counts for a princess of hawt pants -- Mr. JIMMY CONNORS! *bompbompbomp!* And Miss Farrah Fawcett, I din' fergit tchoo! GOO' GAWD!
• *accepts towel, goes off-thread, crossing fingers not to be banninated for continuing unfortunate derail*
• From, I think, The World According to Garp: "Men at 40 start softly closing doors behind them that they will never again open."
• Heheh - good show, Cap'n. But Jimmy Connors?? This is unbelievable! You have GOT to be joking! *throws racket* . . . Oh allright.
• I guess I belong to the middle-age spread, but I can smart-off just as well as you young whippersnappers. I think I crossed over from young adult to mature when I decided that I couldn't wear my hair in 2 ponytails anymore without feeling silly instead of fun-loving. Mature slid into middle-age when arthritis set in. But that's just the outside. Inside I'm still twelve. With ponytails.
• You've still got the nicest fetlocks in town, GramMa.
• You're middle aged when women around you start to look impossibly young. And you stop yourself from stalking them not so much for the legal implications but for, eh, organic issues. As for the 'maturity' aspect... I felt like a grown-up the day that, opening my mailbox, 'Bills, nothing but bills' came out of my mouth. Of course, if you ask those that know me, they'll say my mind age couldn't possibly be higher than 16. And being already 40, that's both disturbing and... no, it's just disturbing.
• I would put the ... um ...mental complexion of most monkeys (myself included) somewhere between ten and fourteen. And we are susceptible to illusion, easily deceived and overly gullible. Fact: It is demeaning to be made to feel you are valued only for your appearance. Two tendencies underlie much of the dreck we all have to put with: 1.feminity per se is neither valued nor respected , so that women frequently end up with the short end of the stick. And 2.Aging is seen to be an evil, so that everyone or nearly everyone ends up fearing it, trying to avoid it, which is pathetic. And even more pathos comes via the deluge of images delivered by television, movies, and print media. These distort appearance, twisting what we think people are into visual falsehoods so that only the impossibly anorexic Barbie woman comes to seem 'normal', impossibly flawless skin becomes the standard, only a smile from superwhited teeth is perceived as 'attractive', etc. It's tragic to really buy into this, as many do. I'm grateful these distorted images were less omnipresent when I was growing up; so refreshing when younger women in the sixties and seventies eschewed heavy make-up and let their hair not be permanented into strange sculpture. But those days are over, and now green and purple hair prevails; I admit such surreality can be amusing to behold, but on the whole the demands of fashion seem as ridiculous, humiliating and even physically harmful now as they did back in the 1950s. If people choose to buy into this, of course it's their choice, and their problem to deal with the concomittant consequences. But folk seem better off in the long run not placing great credibilty in such things. I had an aunt who, because she adored a certain pair of fashionable shoes when she was a child, wore them long past the time she actually outgrew them -- and as a result had badly deformed feet that caused her health problems for the rest of her life. Most of what we do is admittedly foolish: best to pick your fashion follies carefully, current visual ideals will be of little value in a few years anyway.
• *hearts bees*
• ((((( bees! But where are the typos??
• Monkeyfilter: Most of what we do is admittedly foolish
• I recently observed that I may have reached middle age because I get up every morning and take a handful of pills... but I still feel like a frisky little bunny (except for the back problems...) and look like a 30something chick who's holding on ok.
• No typos? Who are you and why have you kidnapped bees and stolen his MoFi account?! Bring him back now! Really, though, it's so true. It's good to know that most of you don't feel like grownups either. I feel like I play all day at pretending to be one, then when I get home I can be the 14-year-old that I really am! (If only my body could understand this!)
• Oh, yeah, the handfull of pills. When I started lining up the bottles on the table like my gramma, I got a little scared. Now I just pour 'em into my hand and pretend they're illicit fun drugs!
• Lara, you rock, cause at this point, I for one, can no longer handle the real actual factual illicit ones, so I'll have to start doing that too.... whoaa! the prozac is like, totally kicking in, its making this really rad reverb effect with the claritin and the birth-control pill....WIKKED!!!!
• On the dresser. The long, green, rectangular, translucent plastic box. With seven compartments, with seven lids, labeled SMTWTFS. And the pills inside each box. I need that box, I need those pills, but I don't need what it reminds me of. Every day.
• Translucent blue, with ginormous inch-high letters on each lid that I don't really need, I can still read the normal-sized ones just fine, thank you, but that was all they had. *looks at pill box* Damn. I think I'm having an existential crisis now... *goes to dig out Smiths CDs*
• ooh! listen to 'some girls are bigger than others' for me, will you?
• Nah, those pill reminders'll just make you old! Do what I do: forget them for days on end until you feel really sick, then take a whole bunch until you feel really awesome, then vow you'll never forget them again! That's what us young folks do! (I can't handle the illicit stuff anymore, either. I fall asleep after a couple drinks!)
• Monkeyfilter: SMTWTFS
• In my experience, the 30s were when I had "grown up" - gained confidence, knew that my judgement was as good as anyone else's, left awkward shyness behind, and developed a healthy ability to detect bullshit. I did, however, go though the classic identity crisis at 40 - thought "this isn't what I thought at eighteen that I would be doing at this age," so I left my job, sold my house, and moved to Mexico, where I was going to write, or something. It was kind of the last gasp of youth. After a while, I realized that what I was really good at was working in an interesting industry in a middle-management spot, finished up the degree I'd never quite completed earlier, and and spent the next 15 years wowing pretty much everyone with my knowledge, charm and dedication. I've never been able to parse all that into artificial constucts, so I have no idea when I hit middle age. Logically, I suppose, it's when you're half way though your allotted years, so 35 might possibly qualify, but "middle age" doesn't seem thought of as a time when you're at one of your peaks, with other peaks yet to come. So, my advice is, don't fret about it.
• MonkeyFilter: We are susceptible to illusion, easily deceived and overly gullible. MonkeyFilter: ...a vocation, a lifestyle choice, a committment. It has nothing to do with age, it has to do with fabulosity... **blushes, bats eyelashes at Islander, prances around on springy fetlocks while switching her (pony)tail**
• Monkeyfilter: a man, a plan, a canal...a banana?
• What I want to know is, what happened to simply being a grown-up? It seems like now we have young and old, with nothing in-between. When I was a kid, I couldn't wait until I was a grown-up, and now that I'm (nearly?) there, all of my friends moan on about how old they are. What happened to the fun part where you don't have to answer to parents and can run your own life? The so-called "prime of your life?" Are we ignoring it while it happens, or was it always a myth?
• It happens to all of us, in varying levels. The fact that we're busy struggling for our economic balance and juggling relationships with our 'calling' muddles those moments when we enjoy ourselves and can truly say we're doing what we want. Usually those moments are recognizable only after the fact; it's our duty to collect them and appreciate their fleeting essence.
• meredithea - that is ultimately why i posed the question - i am not old (or have problems believing that i am so - you translate). I must be a grown up tho as i have to face up to bills and responsibility and i do fortunately. i love the work that i do but mainly because it allows me to be an inquisitive child...... Sometimes i contrast my life of 'responsibility' ( although it aint in real terms) with friends who have lived from government payments/social security and yes i guess there is some basic 'urban anger' in there. However - these 'friends' are also tied down with their child responsibililities and hate the regime even more than i do. Quo Vadit?
• Wait, what's this about taking pills making you feel old? I've had to take a handful of pills every single day since I was 14. Mind you, having to is not exactly the same as actually doing so. I'm 21 though, so I don't know as I can say a lot on anything else related to being old. Growing up doesn't seem all that great, really.
• MonkeyFilter: Growing up doesn't seem all that great, really.
• I'm middle-aged, by definition and even get the perks on "Seniors Day" at various retail outlets. Frankly I'm enjoying it immensely and get tired of kindly people who try to assure me that I'm not a lilolady. *am too* I do not, however, see any direct relationship between aging of the body and the mind. This body is showing wear but the mind keeps on growing and getting better. /but people do look at me strangely when I say that getting older is fun. (Their loss.)