Original Publication Date: 7/09/07
I remember thinking it was the end of the world when I turned 24. After all, 24 was OLD. What did I have to look forward to? High school was thankfully over, college was finished and I’d been at my post-college job for a year with a lifetime to look forward to. It was the beginning of the end. The sky was falling. Overpriced Laser Discs were the shit. Republicans could one day wind up retaking the White House. There were rumors of a Hudson Hawk sequel. You get the point. It all had the potential to be anarchy!
Now, I didn’t actually start to “feel” my age until I was 31 and had my first case of kidney stones. Someone can go to the gym, get lypo or even plastic surgery to help with looks, but there’s just not a whole lot anybody can do when the internal workings give you the middle finger. Hello Emergency Room, HELLO morphine! Good stuff, that. Was it the end of the world at that age? Naa. I was required to change some of my dietary habits in order to avoid a repeat incident. Trust me, it’s been worth it.
My half Asian partner inherited the best of both worlds from his parents. He’ll be 60 and look 30. I’m white. I’m 37 and I look 32. I’m starting to get little white hairs popping through on the right side of stylishly gay haircut. Not the left, just the right and I’m picking each one of those bastards out whenever I see them. Unfortunately, they have friends. I’m also developing a nasty kink in my neck since I’m only concentrating on the one side. Conspiracy? My body giving me the finger again? Methinks so.
Little ol moi.
All of this has led me to embrace birthday celebrations again. God only knows what’s going to go wrong between one year and the next, so why not do a little something special to show that you’ve made it one additional step forward. And hopefully along the way you’ll have friends whose balance and sense of direction haven’t been impaired, so they can help hold you up and push you down the right path. And hey, you can be cranky and gripe at them while they’re doing it! It’s not like they can hold it against you. After all, you’re old.
I spent my June birthday with a friend I’ve mentioned in previous blogs (no, not the Grosse Pointe Bitch) and his boyfriend, the one who didn’t really care much for me. We went for sushi (they treated, so, thank you, guys) and to endure the wrath of the Sushi Nazi (Seinfeld had the Soup Nazi, we have the Sushi Nazi) and… Well, okay. I might, just might, have given him a little grief, too. He deserves all the grief he can get, especially after the way he abuses and flogs his staff. No no. Not that staff. The people who work for him. He abuses the other staff, too…or rather it should be considered inhumane abuse to the poor buggars he gets to abuse it for him. It’s sordid. I know sordid people.
Anyway, my friend’s boyfriend and I actually had the opportunity to sit down for an hour and just get to know each other a bit more. It was so worth it and I’m confident that any leftover feelings of mistrust and over hostility he held are now gone. Actually, I think he’s pretty cool and believe my friend to be in very good hands. Those I meet who start off hating my guts are usually the ones who are the longest lasting friends. It’s like Kathy Griffin Syndrome.
So, aside from Sushi, I took my guy to his first Heavy Metal concert!!! It was mine, too, but I was once voted Most Likely To One Day Attend A Heavy Metal Concert while he was voted Least Likely. We drove 40 miles in Chicago (which took 2 hours and 40 minutes in Chicago traffic) to see Doro perform. Incidentally, she’s on my list of people I want to meet, so naturally I felt the perfect end to a heavy metal evening would be to meet her, which we did. I even interviewed her for Modamag and it was because of that interview that my partner ended up enjoying the concert as much as he did. Meeting someone as sweet and adorable as Doro leaves one with a very positive impression, so he was doomed to love the show whether he knew it or not. Let’s put it this way…I left with a t-shirt and 2 CDs. That’s how much he enjoyed it. I’m usually lucky if I can buy a Pepsi to sip on during a concert.
What else? Diva Labahn took us out to dinner for the a post-concert post-birthday dinner, the folks were up north, my honorable adopted little brother sent something really cool, the Nitzschean completely forgot it and I found the absolute perfect gift to buy…um…heh heh…myself. One of my all time favorite films growing up in the 80s remains Megaforce. Fox has never bothered to release it on DVD, but someone overseas recently has and it’s in Widescreen! It should arrive by Thursday.
You know what? I’m getting older. 37 is 37. I’m getting some white hair, I’m not as thin as I once was, I’m a bit crankier, I can’t eat Blue Moon ice cream without shitting blue for 3 days because of the food dye…but I’m having fun. And you know what? The sky is still falling. Overpriced Laser Discs are long gone. Republicans could one day hopefully lose the White House. There will never be a Hudson Hawk sequel. You get the point. It still has the potential to be anarchy! What’s not to enjoy?
_______________________
Classic Blog Posts are published every Saturday–mostly, unless I forget like I did last week–while new blog posts are (hopefully) scheduled every Monday and Thursday.
Kage Alan lives in a suburb of Detroit, MI with his partner, Pookie, and their fish, all of who are affectionately named and answer to the word “fish.” He’s been enjoying a couple of last minute birthday gifts that have trickled in. Awesome! Kage is the author of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to My Sexual Orientation, Andy Stevenson Vs. the Lord of the Loins and Gaylias: Operation Thunderspell.