Broken down by age and sex (and boogying)
Dept of, Hope I Die Before I Get Old. Discussion about article by Some Guy in his 50s saying he thinks the desideratum is to just fade away at 75. I dunno, this strikes me, if he is nowhere near that age as yet, pretty much like 'life is completely downhill after 30!', and is possibly due to similar failure to imagine that there could be any other pleasure and satisfactions in life apart from those the person making such a statement can envisage.
He seems to be taking away the wrong message from this: Today he can swim, read the newspaper, needle his kids on the phone, and still live with my mother in their own house. But everything seems sluggish. Although he didn’t die from the heart attack, no one would say he is living a vibrant life. When he discussed it with me, my father said, “I have slowed down tremendously. That is a fact. I no longer make rounds at the hospital or teach.” Despite this, he also said he was happy.
You know, there's nothing wrong with slowing down a bit. Some might even say that we need more of that, and possibly at a rather earlier age, instead of all this strenuousity of achievement.
Also, can think of people who continued to make contributions well into their 80s and even 90s. There is no magic cut-off date.
Is this actually a sort of later-life version of Male Midlife Angst?
('I tell you, I am what I was: and more')
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Dept of, This Goes Well Beyond Terribly Poor Stuff: I bet this guy (the writer's boyfriend) just thinks that he is being an Amazing Cute RomCom character: We live in a house share, so have our own bedrooms. I like to do yoga in my room, but he barges in when he feels like it, despite me asking him numerous times not to disturb me. When I get cross with him for interrupting, he bleats: “But I just want to see you!” So I started locking my door. He has now worked out how to break into my room using a credit card on the lock, and he lets himself in whenever I have the door closed. He has walked in on me waxing my bikini line, depilating my ’tache and pumicing my feet. Not activities I think anyone should witness. He is amused at my outrage.
My response would be 'Deadbolt. Now.' Possibly also warning other people in house about boyfriend's lock-jimmying habits.
I find this particularly creepy because in the Slow Motion Trainwreck Relationship I would go into the spare bedroom to 'do the homework for the language class I was taking' (actually, to get on with writing the novel I was writing) and the other half of the relationship would always find some reason to poke his head around the door if not come into the room (for which there was really, no plausible reason except to check up on me). And this was absolutely someone who if one said one was writing something (not Modern Persian homework) would go 'Oh, let me read it!', which, NO.
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Dept of, The Trouble Is the Fanbase. I like Northern Soul, or, at least, as I am sure my dr rdrz know, I like soul music from the period in question ('songs recorded in small studios by black singers, mostly between 1963 and 1971'). I may even watch the forthcoming movie. But, boy, it sounds like another of those things that young men use to create identity and boundaries e.g. you were apparently required to skorn Motown utterly. This entry was originally posted at http://oursin.dreamwidth.org/2165529.html. Please comment there using OpenID. View
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