This is the inevitable thread for ILxors in their forties

Found out recently an old friend's daughter has been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. It doesn't hit me as personally hard as it does the friends of mine with kids, but I know that seeing something like that happen to your child is one of the absolute worst things you can go through. It also makes me think of the Captain Beefheart song "Bill's Corpse"; it does seem like the only time we get together these days is when something awful happens. Well, you know, I did deactivate my Facebook account.

And yeah it's a good thing you are doing Josh.

I hope medical advances will keep advancing - its the best use of technology

absolutely! at this point, i am just wondering how many of the cancers I am going to get in the next ten years or so

I meant to say at the time: that's an amazing gesture, Josh. I hope it all goes well.

xp

I'll keep you all informed. Procedure is ... Tuesday.

Good luck Josh. Did I miss the backstory of what led you to donate?

wrt nurses, yes they are the best. My generalization is that nowadays nurses choose their profession because they truly love helping others while doctors do it for the ca$h. (of course there are many many fantastic, caring docs)

It was just a donor drive back in 2013. Got my cheek swabbed and forgot all about it.

I just now joined the donor registry because I was "Inspired by a donor story" (you have to say why).

Ah. Well, specifically, our synagogue had a drive because a family member of a temple member needed a marrow transfer.

Update, if anyone wants it. I've been in the hospital since about 6:30 this morning. Marrow harvest went well, my marrow is on its way to the recipient. I'm just hanging out here for the all clear, Waiting for my hemoglobin levels, waiting for a little bit of bleeding to stop, waiting to pee again. Literally hanging out, too; hospital gowns do little for the ego.

good on you for volunteering; hope you have games on your phone
they're basically all that make life worthwhile

Hope the glow of righteous, selfless action exceeds any pain - what a fantastic and life changing thing to do. Huge respect.

The PACU where I've been stuck has so many video game like noises going on anyway, I did think it would be hilarious if i comically added to the din. Honk!

I actually did overhear a nurse talking about her pet duck, which was highly entertaining.

http://themotionpictures.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/ybyl.png

pics or it didn't happen.

Just kidding. well done and take care!

hello. i'm new here

fuck, i remember my uncle, and various friends of my parents, turning 40. i'm not their age.

Welcome. It's not all bad. I find I only feel my age when I remember how old my kids are.

I used to belong here, but now, y’know ...

...you can’t find the 50s thread?

Come on along

I’ll yet be over there in March. Having my 49th year literally be a year of COVID is weird — my birthday was one of the last classic fun days before lockdown — but in a weird way the enforced calm is probably what was needed given everything else in the world.

Hey, dog. Pay no mind to the fact that your birth is now closer to The Blitz than it is to the present day.

Or that if Austin Powers went back in time thirty years ago now, he'd land in 1989, just in time for your ninth birthday.

Forty is a great age, to be honest. Why? Because it ain't 41.

1990. Thirty years ago was 1990.

^^ Get used to crap like that too.

Oh crap, I'm actually 41 now!

1990. Thirty years ago was 1990.

Watch any TV news report from 1990 and it'll feel like it was even longer ago.

Both of my kids have in recent years needed to dress "'90s" for something and they ran their duds by me. My reaction was that, first, early 90s were very different from the late 90s. And second, the hell I remember what anyone was wearing, that was years ago.

The sudden realization that socked me in the gut earlier this year was that I'd graduated high school twenty five years ago. That can't be possible. A quarter century? No, no, that's not right. Try the math again, please.

xpost Next time, tell them to do an image search for TLC.

Tanky jeans, tanky sweatshirts.

Watch any TV news report from 1990 and it'll feel like it was even longer ago.

I dunno. A lot of it holds up!

https://i.imgur.com/k7WTP1M.gif

also, flying cars

Xpost to the absentminded thread
My favorite part of being in my 40s is the realization, maybe once a month, that I’ve been walking around all day, going to bars and shopping etc, with my fly open

over the summer I watched a couple documentaries about the LA Riots and then the one about the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill hearings ... and I thought, this is middle age, this is like my parents watching documentaries about the Civil Rights movement and Mississippi Burning

Same way my granddad used to lay on the couch and fall asleep to kamikaze attacks on batteships in the Pacific theater, I'm certain my grandkids will come into my den to find me snoozing away to ash-covered stockbrokers stepping their way through fallen rubble and drifting paper.

Lol

I’ll yet be over there in March. Having my 49th year literally be a year of COVID is weird — my birthday was one of the last classic fun days before lockdown — but in a weird way the enforced calm is probably what was needed given everything else in the world.

i don't want to alarm you, but this is actually your 50th year

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/898/402/48d.gif

i don't want to alarm you, but this is actually your 50th year

Guy at the liquor store venting a little about a woman who came in on Saturday night, wanting to buy vodka even though she didn't turn 21 until Sunday.

I mentioned the same thing you just said and got the blankest stare, before he mumbled something about tell that to the ABC.

This is his 50th year, but he’s still 49.

This is like when people ask how old a child is and parents say something like “he’ll be 4 in December.” Is there some shame in being 3? Just say he’s 3!

/rant

Even worse when they do it in bars.

Even worse when you tell the ticket lady he's 8 so he can have the free admission and your daughter pipes up "No, Daddy, he was 9 last week, don't you remember?"

Teenagers on tiktok are posting video of high schoolers from 2003 like it’s vintage 1950s footage and it’s making me feel unwell pic.twitter.com/sROVmfII3C

— ellory smith (@ellorysmith) October 14, 2020

The best thing about this age is getting socks for your birthday, and being happy about it.

damn truth! i got a birthday coming up and I should research what socks I want so that I can let my family know!

The weirdest thing for me about getting older is reading old e-mails and realizing how much the entire way that society functions has shifted and changed so much in the past 20 years, like it's alarming

i suppose that's the nature of the western world universally? Like the jump from 1903 to 1925 must've seemed impossibly seismic too.

there was a major earthquake in 1906 so ... otm

Ya perhaps. I mean, the shift to having SMS being the primary form of interpersonal communication is obv an enormous shift, but it's shocking to see how huge a development it is when you, like, look back at the e-mails we were sending each other pre-2005.