Late Mid Twenties

Well, being 26, I am in my late mid-twenties. In May, when I turn 27, I will be in my early late-twenties. This is something I've developed in order to make things sound a little more palatable as I get older.

Certainly in my life there have been things that have made me feel old. Like seeing Full House on Nick at Nite, having my younger brother and younger sister get married before me, or seeing Halloween 4 on American Movie Classics. Well, just kidding about that one. Everybody knows AMC is the worst channel in history. I mean, come on. They show fucking American Pie on that channel.

But probably what consistently reminds me of my age is teaching my college freshman. I mean, it wasn't so long ago that I myself was a college freshman, skipping lots of math classes and staying up until 4 every night with my roommate for absolutely no good reason other than we could. (We were pretty big losers, so we didn't have a lot of friends). This semester, though, I'm teaching Maus, Watchmen, and Dark Knight Returns, all written in the mid to late 80s. I find that I'm constantly having to explain the general political climate of the time, and how that might affect their reading of these works, because most of them were alive for only two years of the 80s, tops. I mean, we talk about the Reagan administration a little bit, and to be fair I wasn't actually in America for that, but I pretty much have to educate them from scratch. Their general knowledge of Reagan is that he single handedly broke the Berlin wall with his fists and destroyed the Soviet Bloc with one wink. Just kidding of course. They have no idea what the Berlin wall or Soviet Bloc are.

But do I feel old? I mean, I'm older than these kids, certainly. And I don't really ever get carded anymore, unless I go to a bar where college students go. And I have a couple of grey hairs. And I'm not really in shape. (Though some may argue that I wasn't ever in shape to begin with, and some may be right). And I'm in a stuffy graduate program. And I have two cats. And I pretty much always use metamusil and viagra. And I complain that things were better before all these whippersnappers were running around. And I go to Shoneys at 4:30 for dinner every Sunday. And I have to buy pre-chewed food. And my grandkids never call, the goddamned little ingrates. And I have a healthy collection of 78s, that don't quite hold up to the quality of phonographic cylinders. And I drive in a very annoying manner to young folk.

But on the other hand, my ideal day is probably spent reading comic books and playing video games. Also, my apartment is decorated in action figures and movie posters. So maybe I'm old in some ways, and young in the important ways.

PS - I don't need viagra, just to clarify. That was a joke. I was being facetious. I am one hundred percent fine in the special area. No viagra for me, thanks. Honest.