This is a thread for ILXORS IN THEIR 50's

sept 1968 was like the gayest time to enter high school

everyone cool in those days were entering college

u cursed by the stars aimless

everyone cool in those days were entering college WAS GETTING DRAFTED TO 'NAM

yep -- that's where my pops was in '68 -- sent there two weeks after i got borned! booh hooh.

--a sometime ilxor in his 40s

everyone cool in those days were entering college WAS GETTING DRAFTED TO 'NAM WAS NOT ME, BY ANY STRETCH OF IMAGINATION! Skinny, geeky 13 year old, I'm just sayin'.

nED AT THE SOCKHOP OH MY GOD

aimless serious q did you at least smoke a lot of pot? and at least know a kid like trip fontaine?

if not you have destroyed any reason i have to respect actual early 70s HS kids

I am 10 years shy of 50 but this thread is making me feel old.

momus is almost 50

There's a Guided By Voices song about this.

nED AT THE SOCKHOP OH MY GOD

I really, really don't know how to react to this.

weve all reacted by blotting it out

Well I know that you're in love with him,
Because I saw you dancing in the gym
You both kicked off your Keds.
Oh, I dig that rhythm and Ned!

(I thought JBR's suggestion at first was an age progression of ILXors into their fifties and was thinking "oh it won't take much to imagine some of that.")

Ned, all you have to do is put on the socks. That's all. And we need a hardwood floor, and XTC's "Life Begins At The Hop". Now who will film this????

did you at least smoke a lot of pot?

I think the first time I smoked pot was roughly summer of 1970. Didn't do much for me. My friends included several 'heads', but I was just a dabbler. My older brother was into it pretty far by 1971. He still tokes up now.

I didn't really get launched as a pot smoker until college, where I spent most of 1974 stoned. Made my own bong from a glass lab beaker. I quit entirely around 1977 or so. I can't say I miss it.

and at least know a kid like trip fontaine?

Hard to say, because I don't have a clue who trip fontaine is. I did know a lot of druggies and hippies in the 70s. They were as common as daisies back then.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_3Pgo2kaznFU/RqsBjrRCKMI/AAAAAAAAARs/7wAJzhaYC3A/s1600/964.jpg

that link 404'ed me

(xxpost) Trip Fontaine is a character from the book/film "The Virgin Suicides"

Start at about 3:30 here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_smJP8oRnE

Btw, Frank Kogan, who posts to a couple of the rolling genre threads on ILM, is 54.

Also:
Most of the time I dwell in a state of unreality, where I have amazing superpowers. And I am 50 years old.

-- Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Monday, February 5, 2007 12:29 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Link

Our cohort is few, but mighty.

abbott being a sexy cold war scientist

OH MY GOD WHY WAS I NEVER THAT

I remember Howdy Doody.

and i thought i was old for remembering leaded gasoline!

madonna, michael jackson, prince and ME -- i am now 50 and 1/2.

sept 1968 was like the gayest time to enter high school

everyone cool in those days were entering college

there is truth lurking here -- people in our sub-generation have a complicated relationship w/our older sibs, the 60s baby boomers. this usage of "gay" is uhm, anachronisitic, or something. (I entered HS in 72 FWIW.)

anachronistic! edgy, you mean!!1!

so is bimble part of this exclusive club?

I didn't expect to get shoulder and back hair this late in the game.

ha was wondering what you meant in the 40s thread

what's up y'all

had a cardiologist call me at 7am to cancel my appointment (snow)

this morning the dentist said that my teeth with metal fillings will all eventually need crowns; seems legit, the youngest of those fillings is 40+ years old

i went to the dentist for lots of work this past year, first time since forever, and it was all space aged nano whatever shit and i think the dentist and his assistant were legit smirking at my one old iron ore filling from when i was a teenager, fifty years ago, in an eastern bloc nation

oh hi, I'm 54 now

peeing takes a long time

backache is a thing

(knocks on wood)

As hinted above, I have a cardiologist now! My primary doctor, who has pretty amazing raw skills -- like hearing -- apparently, thought he heard a murmur in my heartbeat last month. GREAT!

It turns out I have an "unconcerning" prolapse which is a "2" (not a 3 or a 4), so it just has to be checked every year from now on.

Aging is a motherfucker.

all the best morbs

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murmur_(album)#/media/File:R.E.M._-_Murmur.jpg

i am two years older than william hartnell in this picture :D

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/1920x1080/p01hg14p.jpg

(obviously i have regenerated several times: also did not grow up in poverty etc)

He got paid five times more per ep than Anneke Wills was, to make up for the poverty stricken childhood!

what a feelin'

mainly feeling it in my lower back today

Rapidly approaching Sammy Hagar milestone.

Minutemen?

Can you hear me, Dr. Mu

Imagine my surprise

Just realized that the “ordinary guy” in Pavement’s “Stereo” is maybe a reference to “Dr. Wu.” I still got it!

Oh wait

I just had my first one last year, it's been fine so far. It's next to another troublesome tooth, I have a feeling I may end up with two side by side.

I guess we can trust Jaq on this one.

What's the drill with cleaning them? Is it just like a normal tooth? Or do they require extra maintenance

I hope they don't need extra maintenance because I'm just brushing/flossing like a normal tooth.

Also lol I had not thought of it being lodged in my skull.

Remember goofy junior-high science fiction, where some kid with fillings or braces would start picking up radio signals from Moscow?

My teeth are pretty much in pieces at this point, I'm afraid. Several are ground down to the gum. I'd probably need at least five figures overseas to repair or remove, and probably an upper six figures to get them done here. They'll probably all be worn down or gone by the time I'm 65, and there's nothing I can do about it.

My teeth have been pretty fucked forever, but I started sleeping with one of those moulded mouthguard things a few years ago and that seems to have slowed the pace of destruction

I hate it (hate the concept, physically it is fine) and I put it off for years - but it seems to be making a big difference and I probably should have done it earlier - I hated having regular dental catastrophes more

I got a crown a year or so back, and I'm afraid I have not been taking care of it as scrupulously as I think I'm meant to - I tend not to floss, my teeth are very tight together and its very difficult. I've noticed a lot of nerve sensitvity reocurring recently which could mean the damn root under the crown is carking it. I dont want, and really cannot afford, rootcanal or implant replacement. Despite our excellent univeresal healthcare, dental (and mental) is the one area Australia shat the bed on and is thus hideously expensive.

one of my crowns fell out two days ago. i was eating a mini chocolate easter egg that was encased in a thin candy shell. this was during an in-person meeting at work. the crown came right off and i thought it was a piece of candy shell that had gone wrong in the manufacturing process. so i threw it away! five minutes later i’m rummaging in the bin for it. “don’t mind me”

oh btw i have my varifocals now and uh everything is warped and blurry unless i turn my head to look at it dead-on. this is progress????

never seen the point to them, it's not too much of a burden to have both reading and distance glasses.

i kind of agree but the thing is i did get some reading glasses from a store in the airport and i basically have to hold a book 2 inches from my face for them to work. :(

tracer, i found the exact same thing. a week later and i either don't do it so much or don't notice it so much (but yes, it's a thing, i don't think the lenses can curve to fit the frames and be correctly curved to correct the vision)

anyone have some more up-to-date studies on implants? I have one, "need" another, but have heard mixed reports about long term stability?

Anecdotally, my implant is still going strong for 24 years now.

Tracer, give it some time. IME progressive lenses take a couple of days for your brain to rewire where to look. It's incredible to me that the brain does this so quickly and on its own (in my case).

I'm just glad the tooth that fell out wasn't the one with cyanide in it.

they stuck it back in today. it turned out it had split in half, and the other half was still in there. how long will it last? i said. “could be next week, could be 5 years from now.” well it only cost £25. thank u based nhs

xpost I tend not to floss, my teeth are very tight together and its very difficult

i have this issue as well. i've have had good success (can actually get the floss between my teeth and get the floss out without fighting) using glide brand floss and some of the new waxed floss brands.

my dentist has told me that interdental brushes are better. i hate the waste they produce but i use them now and they do seem to work very well.

I've experienced almost every dental thing mentioned in this thread: Broken teeth (w/ bonus infection), root canals, replacement of Classic 80s Metal Fillings, deep cleanings that required anesthesia, and even the laser gum surgery.

My daily hygiene routine includes: Floss, Perio-Aid tool, Waterpik, and finish with a soft bristle tooth brushing and some mouth wash if I'm feeling nasty. Plus, I sleep with a Night Guard because my jaw-clenching is probably caused the gum issues (if you get a Night Guard, consider occasionally doing your own enzyme wash with a vinegar/water solution). The only common thing I have never had to do with my teeth is braces.

These days when I go in for routine teeth cleanings (4x a year - two of them I have to cover out-of-pocket), it takes them like 10-15 minutes to do them (they still cost the same as one that would take 45 minutes, of course).

my man

I (mostly) gave up bubble water/seltzer because my dentist said she could see little divots in the enamel.. "But I don't drink Coke, only unsweetened seltzers!" No matter, she said, it's the carbolic acid

it's not too much of a burden to have both reading and distance glasses.

Been my route for the last few years. Works just fine for me!

Trayce, they didnt do a root canal before putting the crown on? I thought that was standard.

I got the flu and then an old friend, a person of immense importance to the peer group that once was my whole social milieu, died -- he'd had cancer and preferred not to let people know, so it came as a shock -- most of us hadn't seen him in years, I saw him about ten years back just because my work takes me to various cities. He ran a coffee shop; it doesn't sound like much, but that coffee shop was the epicenter of social life for so many of us for a very long time -- many of us worked there, evenings often began there, as did days; it was a part of us for some time. That time passed long ago, but his death hurt us all so much -- we gathered on Facebook and just hurt together, off in various corners of our own worlds, mourning a time that passed so long ago, his death an occasion to mark the everyday loss of our earlier selves, of the greater thing we were then, which underwent the sort of slow fragmentation that's the natural end of scenes, of peer groups. I still have the flu, also the pollen in the air might/almost surely is making everything worse, but his death has me in crisis. He left our town at some point (long after I did) to return to Chicago, his original home, where his life continued and grew in many ways, and he was able to devote much of his time to a daughter he had late in life -- I have been doing the same work for 21 years, work that takes me away from home again and again, year in and year out. I'm very good at this work now...and I am plagued by the feeling that this is no way to live, that whatever my "self" is it takes a beating every time I hit the road and have to stitch it back together when I return, and that the internal cost of this process is too dear. "Is this who I am? Is this how I have chosen to live?" is perhaps the most ilxors-and-others-in-their-50s mood, of course, but I don't usually indulge any such thoughts, head down press forward make money, being parent to a disabled child makes that imperative more pressing for me, but in my sickness this week and in my grief I feel acutely that it is time for change for me.

^^^thank you for posting this; spouse and I are both in similar predicaments re: “is this who I am?” And very sorry for your loss. And the flu. Harder to cope when we physically feel like shit.

then i hope you find and can make satisfying change. or find a satisfying change of view, from which what you are doing feels more complete for you. and i’m very sorry for the loss of your friend.

sorry my post was xp. but yeah, peace to any ilxors feeling adrift, which def includes me.

Wishing you the best, JCLC, hope you are feeling better soon. The other stuff is a lot to deal with at the same time. Try to be kind to yourself and trust you will make the best decision you can when you are in a better place.

A lot to say about this but I don't think any of it would be helpful.

Commiserating is helpful

honestly anybody reading my thoughts has helped me today, I don't share much of this stuff but here among people with whom I've shared discussions for so long I feel free to unburden myself a little and it helps.

I'm very sorry for your loss, and really can identify with what you wrote. I am often struck by the loss of the feeling I had even 10-15 years ago, that anything was possible. This is definitely a time of narrowing options--but not no options at all. So I hope you can find something that gives you more peace.

update on my health: it was pneumonia & bronchitis. I'm now on a big ol cocktail of meds and just now took pleasure in eating for the first time in a week. I am mad as hell because I'm trying so hard to get back up to my long runs, running is important to me and I've been on a 2-year-plus injury jag but JUST this month I finally seemed to have turned a corner, ran 5k three times week before last....and then last week I was knocked down by illness and I know that recovering from pneumonia is yet another fuckin "take it easy on yourself" situation but there's only so easy I can take it, I'm back to work on Friday and my job involved two hours a night of being pretty energetic. main feeling right now is gratitude for the visit and feeling pleased with myself for resolving "just get your ass to the clinic as soon as you wake up" because I was in "I can't live like this, can I?" territory, it's still bad but the drugs are working.

attention bronchitis & pneumonia: 🖕

I am very much in a "is this gonna be my forever life?" place as well. Part of it's frustration with my publisher, who has not responded for a couple of weeks now to my emails about my upcoming book, but another part of it is getting itchy with the endless treadmill of writing about music generally. I'm starting to think more seriously than I have in years about Writing About Something Else For A Change. Sending three poems to a local literary magazine (no response yet) helped a little, and looking at some fiction projects with an eye toward self-publishing them is helping, too, because putting three older books out there will push me to finish a fourth that's fully plotted but only about 1/4 written. If my current "full-time" job lurches toward greater stability (which it might, soon), I will be in a position to make some decisions.

get well soon jclc.

running will come back soon enough. were you the person who recommended "what i talk about when i talk about running" on ilx? seems like you probly coulda.

possibly? as I am of the age to be on this thread, I do tend to forget a buncha stuff