In two days, I turn 44. No, please, hold your applause.<\/p>\n
As birthdays go, it’s not exactly a milestone. Forty-four will not be “sweet,” nor is it my Quincean-anything. I will not reach a threshold for obtaining age-dependent items, like admission to R-rated movies or a medically indicated prostate exam. When I started drinking legally, Mark Wahlberg was still Marky Mark (though the Funky Bunch had disbanded by then). I’ve been voting since before Pete Buttigieg graduated middle school.<\/p>\n
Speaking of which, I’ve been eligible to run for president for nearly a decade now. I really should file that paperwork … As soon as my son steps down from the board of directors of that Ukrainian energy conglomerate.<\/p>\n
I’ve still got 21 years before I can collect social security — but only six until I can join AARP — and another two decades to teach myself that Beatles song on guitar. You know, the one about whether someone will still need (and feed) Paul McCartney when he’s 64? I think it’s called “I am the Walrus.”<\/p>\n
Anyway, as of Feb. 25 — a birthday I share with Zeppo Marx, George Harrison, and the guy who played Thurston Howell III on “Gilligan’s Island” — I draw within 34.7 years of average life expectancy for an American male. Silver lining: that extra .7 of a year means I can catch one last PFD sale, so I can be buried with a gigantic plasma TV. What’s the afterlife without ultra-HD?<\/p>\n
Of course, 44, itself, is an auspicious number. Forty-four happens to be the atomic number of ruthenium; Reggie Jackson’s jersey number; a variety of poker game; a gun caliber; the number of candles in a box of Hanukkah candles and, according to Wikipedia, an unincorporated community in Izard County, Arkansas, where you probably won’t find Hanukkah candles in any amount.<\/p>\n
Now, 20 years ago, I turned 24. And I’ll tell you, I really don’t feel much older today than back at the turn of the century. Actually, that’s not entirely true. I mean, I take an ACE inhibitor, now. I contribute to an IRA. I bathe. But basically, I’m a cleaner, hypertensive, fiscally responsible version of my 24-year-old self.<\/p>\n
Or at least that’s how I like to think of myself.<\/p>\n
You see, as a wise man once said, “time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping … into the future.” And slipped, it has. These days, I don’t “fly like an eagle” as much I “groan when I stand up.” This ski season alone I’ve blown through a whole bottle of ibuprofen, and I mean the Costco ibuprofen — the “tallboy.”<\/p>\n
Whenever I take a closer look at my life — and I mean actual introspection, not just scrolling through selfies of me looking introspective — I notice further differences.<\/p>\n
For example:<\/p>\n
At 24, it was wine, women and song. At 44, it’s club soda, kids and closed-captioning.<\/p>\n
At 24, I’d drive hundreds of miles for a concert by a band I’d already seen hundreds of times. At 44, I’ll put Coffeemate in my cereal if it means not having to go to the corner for milk.<\/p>\n
At 24, I wanted to rock and roll all night and party every day. At 44, I’m done by 9 — and only on weekends and holidays.<\/p>\n
At 24, I could fit all my worldly possessions into a hatchback. At 44, my garage alone would need its own U-Haul. I’ll tell you this, Marie Kondo never lived in Southeast Alaska.<\/p>\n
At 24, I thought I was the center of the universe. At 44, well, actually, I still kind of think that.<\/p>\n
At 24, I’ll admit, I wasn’t exactly a magnet for the opposite sex. At 44, all kinds of women call and text. Granted, they’re strictly looking for carpool drivers or childcare, but still, nice to feel desired.<\/p>\n
One last thing … turning 44 does, however, mark one signpost. On Feb. 25, 2020, my driver’s license expires.<\/p>\n
And so while I celebrated my 24th birthday watching the sun rise after a night bar-hopping in the East Village, I guess I’ll be ringing in 44 at the DMV. Maybe after, I can file my taxes. And then cap it off with a nap. Wicked.<\/p>\n
• Geoff Kirsch is an award-winning Juneau-based writer and humorist. “Slack Tide” appears every second and fourth Sunday in Neighbors. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As birthdays go, it’s not exactly a milestone. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":58660,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":9,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,7],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-58659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58659"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=58659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}