A photo means less than it used it. I’m pretty sure my birthday was one of the few days of the year that I used to post a picture of myself, but now self-portraits are so commonplace online that even I have upped my participation. So, here is 42, no big deal.
You also know I’m obsessed with age. And watch a lot of TV passively. And I always get excited when there’s a scene on screen with grown women in bars. (If anyone happens to read this blog, but not Facebook–I’m looking for women over 39 to have a drink with. This is serious!)
Last night it was Married. I assumed the Judy Greer character was at least 40 because she looks so and was telling the young moustache dude at the bar that she had three kids, and earlier lamented returning to the workforce because her last resume was on a floppy disk, but Judy Greer the actress just turned 39 on July 20. Oh well.
Her drinking companion was Jenny Slate who is 32 in real life, but played late 20s in Obvious Child, a movie that was likeable in the way I like Girls. It’s identifiable, especially the NYC-specificity. But I have to take a step back sometimes and remember that these are women a decade-and-a-half younger. Shitholes, crappy jobs, gross dates, childlessness, drugs/drinks and general fucked-up-ness don’t translate the same with 40somethings. There’s a fine line between stunted and awesome and I’m trying to find it.
And when I allow myself to feel old and cranky, I become critical of characters who are just in a phase, working minimally in an expensive city, treading water until their real life happens. I do wonder if this is a TV/Film phenomena, an NYC aberration or endemic to millennials regardless of geography. It plays into my suspicion of kids I see in the neighborhood with rich, old parents. In Obvious Child, Slate’s mom talked about having an abortion in college in the ’60s. My mom didn’t go to college, but if she did it would’ve been late 60s/early 70s. I’m pretty sure it can be broken down between Eileen Fisher moms and everyone else.
This 25-year-old is getting a lot of attention because he wrote a popular tumblr under a pseudonym, got a book deal and is now focusing on law and not writing. The novelty is that he’s “made it” as a writer at a young age but wants an unrelated career and financial stability and concedes that he may only have one good book in him (that’s all great, yet he radiates an intangible douchiness). Anyway, the only reason I care about him here is that his dad was born in 1951, according to the above-linked interview. 38 doesn’t seem weird at all to be a parent right now, of course.
I’m actually kind of excited for Generation Z, not because I will necessarily like them but because they be the first big wave of non-boomer-bred humans.
Well, that was a lot of pointless spewing when I should be celebrating the day of my birth. I’m going out for a nice dinner in an hour. It’s all good. God bless the confident kids with elderly moms and dads.
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