This is a thread for ILXors in their 30's!!! yo yo yo breakdancing etc...

no no nabisco I meant that your ruminations on your thirties struck me as if you'd already lived through them

Not this picture either, but this is pretty much what I mean...
http://www.solarnavigator.net/music/music_images/Nirvana_band_members.jpg

btw if you have to iron your pants you're either buying the wrong kind or storing them incorrectly

Oh, gotcha. The topic seems to call for some kind of thoughtful response. I only just turned 31, though, so I wouldn't exactly trust me on the topic of what one's 30s are like.

PP otm re:XXX9. see also: kid rock's breakout and de la soul: 3 ft. high & rising

i can't believe nabisco is younger than i am! only by a year, but still...

I am also surprised by this.

Well into my 30s I still rarely iron clothes. Time on this planet is growing short for me and I like to make better use of my time.

THANKS GUYS, GREAT THREAD TO TELL ME I SEEM OLD ON

I still buy hoodies and don't iron a goddamn thing. Maybe once I hit the big 3-1?

nab, i think i first met you in my mid-20s and you seemed about 5 years older than me then, so i'm basing my assumptions on a younger version of you -- does that make sense?

I'm taking a freshman 101 class right now and sat with a bunch of kids who are at least 15 years younger than me this morning. It was hilarious for them, like their first encounter with someone who isn't a teacher or older relative but isn't one of them.

"So do you all live in the dorms?"
"No, actually my wife and I own a house."
"Uh.....what year are you?"

That's kind of worse! But it reminds me of something I was just noticing the other day, about aging: more and more I find myself doing that thing where you shrug and say something like "oh, I dunno, I'm just a guy who is X" -- this sort of comfort that develops where you say yeah, this is who I am, this is what I do, this is what I hope to accomplish, and that's that.

As I was approaching 30 I probably experienced a lot more stress about what I was doing and what kind of successes I could get to, and I was a little afraid the 30s would be some big crushing slog to make that happen. Maybe it's just that as a result of that stress I started getting my goals in better order, but over the past year or so I've felt significantly less stressed about those things: I know what I'm working on, and really don't care much lately about meeting any standards or timelines apart from the ones I'm setting for myself.

I just turned 30 and between this thread and a couple of other recent thingies I'm pretty convinced our generation - the folks who are all 24-42 or so, at the moment - is about to be fucking crucial. for me being thirty is about realizing, for really dough, that I'm not going to be this that or the other thing, but that I CAN be this that and the other thing I wasn't necessarily considering before. I'm trying to be a civil servant, a bureaucrat, practically, because that's where I think I have a shot at shepherding things in a better direction. I'm considering the possibility of finally owning property. I'm going to settle in my town and do a job the best I can - these are things that hardly occured to me in my twenties, if at all. It was always "oh san francisco's awesome" or "how much of a pay cut could I tolerate to live in NYC" etc now I'm like I've seen a bit of the world and frankly I don't mind so much where I'm at, astronaut or bomb squad was out of the question from the get-go, let's do what we can. I hope I can spend part of this decade doing a little more than self-preservation in between misdirected hijinx, which is the story of the last decade - yes, military enlistment and failed marriage included - I'm even talking with the lady about going on one of those weeklong Habitat camps where you sleep on cots and build houses. I think I'm going to dig it, I think I'm finally coming out of this bizarre 29-30 transitionary period.

It all boils down to reading Vonnegut and having a completely different understanding than you had before, kinda.

btw starting with "it all boils down to" and ending with "kinda" is not a sentence construction I recommend to anyone, ever.

Surely I am not the only one for whom the passage of time seemed far different for my 20s than it is for my 30s. I swear that the time between age 22 and 29 was actually like 12 years.

Put another way, it seemed like I was in my 20s forever, while the 30s are clicking by really quickly.

Granny Dainger raises a fascinating point. Everything shot in the '70s and '80s is grainy and/or blurry. Most stuff that's shot now is in HD and won't deteriorate. If nothing swanky like 3D comes along in the next 20 years, footage won't age (apart from the fashions therein obv).

Recently I saw some Young Ones footage and it looked AWFUL. At the time, it was clear and crisp and tantalisingly lovely. I am 34.

"by the way I'm in my 30s"

I think the only thing I'm not enjoying about particularly my late 30s, is declining health, and a far reduced ability to cope with hammering the naughty substances. I'm at that tipping point where I either back off and start looking after myself diligently, or I go 'eh whatever' and risk ending up ill.

Its hard! I'm enjoying myself :(

in many ways i'm probably healthier now than i've been since my early 20s. i don't mind being over 30, i freaked out a bit at 31 but i'm pretty calm about it now, i cope with being the old guy by not trying even vaguely to be relevant

I hate the beer gut I've gotten but then I look at my bf who is only 24 and already has a beer gut outdoing mine and I dont worry so much haha.

I'm certainly fitter than I've ever been.

It's suddenly driving home the point of how much younger than me most of the sort of "traditional guard" of ILX is. That the 30s are still a recent experience for you, while I'm about to kiss them goodbye.

I know that sentance is really garbled, but I haven't had my coffee yet. That's one thing that REALLY decreases with age. The ability to function without sleep.

I always think that I'm spending more and more time these days feeling tired and lazy, but if i think about it a bit more I remember that this is also what i did during my 20's

The ability to function without sleep? I'm not sure it actually decreases that much, you just don't remember being that tired in retrospect.

No, no, I mean ability to *function*. I used to be able to be tired, but still put in a day's work or whatever. Now, if I don't sleep properly, I simply don't function. Can't concentrate, can't focus, can't have a cup of coffee and snap to it.

I think I function slightly better without sleep than I did in my twenties, but maybe that's just because I don't drink as much!

I had a similar blip in my mid-30s when I first stopped drinking so much, but that has now passed and the decline is back on. By the time I am 50, I will be sleeping 10 hours a day. (If the world is not consumed by Hadron supercollider or Mayan prophecies of ruin, and I'm not hit by a bus, etc.)

I thought as you get older you don't need as much sleep anyway. My grandma is up at 5am and goes to bed at midnight. Does that only kick in when you get to your 60s or something?

I think it varies according to metabolism. People in my family tend to need more sleep as they get older. If they don't get it at night, they'll nap during the day. (God I miss naps from being unemployed.)

Things that freak me out. I have tennis lesson from a guy who's 28. I'm pretty sure he's the little brat I would play against when I was 15 years old (and he about 7-ish). I now realize if I had continued I woul... Ah I gotta stop thinking this way. hah.

Penpals! Had tons of'em. My "best/longest" one wanted to meet up after about 7 years of writing. I knew that when we would meet up, it would be the end of it as the "magic" would be broken. We did meet up. We continued to write but after a year or so it just kinda watered down and that was that. Kinda sad but then we were already in our late teens and you sort of move on/grow up.

Less sleep? Bollox. I need my sleep but then my youngest has decided otherwise. LE SIGH. My gran - who might have Alzheimer - sleeps about 16 hours per day if I am guessing right.

Sometimes the magic was broken by meeting penpals. But in my experience, they translated into IRL friends. I ended up being roommates for several years with someone I met through the penpal circuit!

THANKS GUYS, GREAT THREAD TO TELL ME I SEEM OLD ON

Not old, wise. Take it as a compliment.

I'm totally where Tom is now. My days of city-hopping, failed marriages (well just the one), and career-switching are done and I'm content to just live and build the life I have. Although it has taken me to 35 to reach this point.

Also, talking about being around younger people, my new job is playing with my head as I'm now supervising 19 and 20 year olds. I realize I am the old person which is bizarre. It doesn't make me feel bad but just strange seeing myself through other people's eyes.

Perhaps they'll keep me young trying to keep up with their mad web skillz and crazy music.

Surely I am not the only one for whom the passage of time seemed far different for my 20s than it is for my 30s. I swear that the time between age 22 and 29 was actually like 12 years.

Put another way, it seemed like I was in my 20s forever, while the 30s are clicking by really quickly.

-- quincie, Wednesday, August 27, 2008 7:43 PM (Wednesday, August 27, 2008 7:43 PM) Bookmark Link

this is frighteningly OTM.

We're all forgetting the best part of being in your mid-30s:

No longer being in the key 18-34 Marketing demographic target.

No, that's the worst part. No one cares about your tastes anymore. It's much harder to find clothes that fit or movies you care about seeing in the slightest or culture that tweaks your interests. ;_;

my new job is playing with my head as I'm now supervising 19 and 20 year olds

Ha, that's been my life for eleven years -- so to me it's all 'oh yeah, right.' Some of my old student workers have been back in touch lately, it's interesting to see where they ended up.

No one cares about your tastes anymore.

Hooray! (Personally I'm more than fine with this, I just keep creating my own aesthetic.)

You ever play that game to see how much closer one year is to ancient history than to the present?

I'd never done this until reading a Philip Sherburne piece which pointed out that Kraftwerk's "Autobahn" was closer to the end of WWII (hell, next year it'll be closer to the start) and now I can't stop.

I was watching (nerd alert) a 1980s "Tomorrow's World" 25th anniversary programme at the weekend and said "hey, all these 60s clips they're showing are as old to them as this show itself is to us now, do you think they would've seemed more dated?" and there was a confused non-response. Uh, yeah, not the funnest game, I guess, but still.

I am not yet in my thirties but if you guys are going to talk about 10" records, VHS tapes, zines, Colecovision and joint pain then this seems more my kind of place than the 20s thread, so, uh, hi! Then again, if this is the thread for people who've got their lives in order and are no longer mystified by adulthood, uh... well, there's a hope for the next 2 years, I guess.

Emsk just shouted at me at lunch for saying that I was functionally 40. She kept saying NO, YOU ARE IN YOUR THIRTIES.

Only just. I'm closer to 40 than to 30. I'm closer to 40 than to 35 these days! I tend to have more in common with 42 year old people than I do with 32 year olds.

And I can't stand music festivals. But I don't think that's anything to do with my age. I'd go to one I could sit down in nice seats and have a break every half hour to go to the loo and get some ice cream. But that would be a play or an opera, not a gig.

No one cares about your tastes anymore.

Fine by me! I feel like less of a "lifestyle target" for heavy-handed marketeers of products and services that don't really enrich my life.

Mind you, I guess I'm in a new "lifestyle demo" (the 35+ homeowner), so I'm now a target for all sorts of other (expensive) shit.

Hahah, if they try that around here with me, they'll be sorely disappointed.

I need to write Emsk! It's been too long.

I generally ignore being marketed to - and the things that were supposedly marketed to "my" demographic didn't really hold much interest to me anyway. So I guess, actually, not much has changed.

But there's a difference between... this is marketed to me but I just don't care about it and "OK, I might as well just not exist as far as demographics go."

Surely I am not the only one for whom the passage of time seemed far different for my 20s than it is for my 30s. I swear that the time between age 22 and 29 was actually like 12 years.

Put another way, it seemed like I was in my 20s forever, while the 30s are clicking by really quickly.

yeah it's kind of fascinating and annoying all at once. Each year becomes a smaller percentage of your total life span as you age. When you're two, a year is half of your entire life, so it seems like forever - literally a lifetime. And it's the reason why the phrase "slow as Christmas" means nothing to me now.

Marketers for the "35+" demo can hit me over the head all they want about home improvements, furniture, luxury SUVs, vacation properties, and all manner of things I'm supposed to want, but 'I'm rubber, you're glue', etc...

Ned, when you started your job, weren't you closer to the age of your students?

Thinking about what is closer to what. . .it trips me out to realize that the rap I listened to when I was young is older to my nieces/nephews (Oh "backspin" channel, you make me cry) now than the Beatles my parents listened to when I was a child. How can the Beastie Boys have been making music longer than the Beatles? When did this happen?

i really don't think anyone ever really cared about my tastes and i always lie on any sort of marketing survey so that doesn't much matter to me.

Ned, when you started your job, weren't you closer to the age of your students?

Oh, of course! But there's a stasis when you work in a college, a useful one in many ways. I don't want to say that work here 'keeps you young' but by default you're always dealing both with your fellow staffers year-by-year as well as a constantly rotating cast of thousands generally between 18 to 22. It just feels normal, for lack of a better word.

The only thing that made me think "Hmm, yeah, time HAS passed" lately was realizing that when I was listening to the new Verve album the other day that the last one before that came out a few months after I started work here. And THAT does seem like a long time.

18-34 demographic? that's a huge group! you start being irrelevant once you're out of the 18-24 one. sorry guys!

massive xposts

xpost

I get older and they keep staying the same age. .. or something like that.