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

"a single beer" indeed. i only started drinking at age 28 or 29, so i only had a few years in there where having three drinks in an evening could be *mostly* counted upon to be a fun, floaty, socially limber and loose and laughing time, and only *rarely* tip over into brutal hangover territory, and/or just being too sleepy and sluggish to enjoy the night in the first place. nowadays those probabilities are reversed. but a single beer with dinner can be a mighty relaxing little pleasure.

since i started on effexor, i am invincible and beer does not hurt me, physically. my ability to write and hold a conversation and think? sure, it goes out the window. but the next morning, i am a-ok physically, every time. i think this might be a problem akin to people without a sense of touch holding a conversation while their arm is on fire on the stove, but....yep.

https://i.imgur.com/a6yXAOf.jpg

i've never actually seen an episode of Thirtysomething, was it any good or just boomer yuppie bullshit?

weird how the actors were all younger than i am now, but (contrary to hollywood's weird youth complex stuff) i still look at them and see faces that feel older or more grownup/adulty than how i picture my peer group right now.

It was just nice to see a fella on tv that looked like all the adult men i knew tbh

Irish fisherman's son btw

It was as good as any nighttime soap, though more character drama than soap craziness like Knots Landing or Melrose Place.

Ken Olin and Patricia Wettig being married IRL and to others on the show was interesting. Always thought the Elliot character batted out of his league to deserve ... Nancy?, while Michael and Hope seemed on track to a 40-something divorce. (Why has beer not killed off my knowledge of their names?)

The two female friends not shown in the above pic were fun, esp. the photographer character. Was most invested in the single guy Gary and Susannah (?) build to a relationship, so was a gut punch when they killed off a bike-riding Gary. Probably also why I saw the "City of Angels" twist coming and hate that version. Later years, can't remember the actor who played the dapper ad exec Michael worked with/for, but he was good in an Alan Rickman way.

interesting, thanks!

wait are you an ILXor in your 30s? i'm having a hard time imagining someone getting that invested in a show like this in 1st grade. tho not unthinkable obv.

ive had a bad back since i was a teenager. it somehow hasn't gotten that much worse over the years of terrible posture and terrible sitting at a desk 9-5. even my current covid set-up - ergonomic hell, partially because im too lazy to go get my office chair from my office - hasn't made it that much worse.

i do miss when i had my ex-wife's benefits and could get 10 free massages from an RMT each year

xp - caught trying to hang with the cool kids! I belong in the 50s thread. Had just graduated college when it started.

I recently found one of my high school yearbooks, crazy to go through that and see how young everyone looked. It's weird because I do on occasion have dreams in which these people show up, but in my dreams they look like they're in their mid-30s (but still in high school, having flunked 20 straight years apparently), not as they actually were

xpost - yes, we are definitely the coolest kids to hang with. in any event i appreciate the context/substance!

I did the same thing at the start of the pandemic, frogbs. It sure is weird to realize that I'm coming up on 14 years since graduation. I'm still friends with maybe a handful of people I knew in high school. I've never bothered going to any of the reunions, though I was only invited to one of them.

It's also a trip to realize that I'm one of the few people from my graduating class who is unmarried, childless, and still living in my hometown. Never lived off of the island.

It's interesting to reflect on what being 30+ (30something, if you will) meant when I was younger versus what it means to me now. I have no perception on if I look my age. I know I don't act my age. I find that I've only gotten more scattered, anxious, and inarticulate, oddly, and I have no idea where that came from.

I live next to one of my best friends from high school, as well as one of my best friends from undergrad. We've all aged, sure, but other than some expected changes, we all look pretty decent.

What's strange is that the friend from high school is quite literally one of the only friends from high school that I am still in contact with— I might run into other people here and there, but not really. I mostly know what they look like through social media— and with several exceptions, they all have two or more kids and live in middle-class areas. A few of my musician and artist friends have stayed in it, which is encouraging, though there's also always the trained actress who married an investment banker and is now a certified life coach, which...uh. Anyway.

seems like she'd have some very specific, evergreen life advice lol

Re: online stuff, at my wedding my best man, whom I'd been hanging out with online since I was 14, dug out some old AOLIM chat logs to roast me with. Hell of a nuclear option for a speech.

Sneaking into tt to say, Urrrrgh I should do that too, or do it more. How is it? Do you still like food or are you embittered foes after all the pain & suffering? What foods make you happy?

The beginning is the worst part, really - spending so long w/o ANY low fodmap triggers was hell, especially because I'd try for free-from alternatives but very often those would have other ingredients I couldn't have (inulin is the worst part). The testing period was a bit of a blow to me as well as I realised I wasn't susceptible to just a few of the triggers but ALL of them. But the truth is that after a rocky start it did help me get better, no more sleepless nights going to the bathroom every 15 min, no more panic about eating and then going somewhere w/o a bathroom, etc. There's a learning curve to figuring out how to have a variety of yummy food to eat w/o going high-fodmap, and you can, though some of the advice online is simply bs - garlic infused olive oil instead of garlic, yeah that's nice if you want to smell garlic in a pan but tastewise it does nothing. The other thing is that as your stomach settles over this new diet it also gets more resistant, so these days I can happily eat high fodmap stuff because I have a good base of low fodmap stuff I eat regularly. Also, every now and then I get a fit, but because I know what to run to in those instances - porridge, steak 'n' potatoes, gluten free gnochi - I can auto correct in a couple of days instead of suffering for weeks.

But anyway this is all highly dependant on the individual! You might not have as many triggers as I do. And I feel like ibs + and ibs- are radically different experiences anyway (if you even have IBS?).

But anyway yeah I still love food and, because I cook so much more now (a low FODMAP restaurant experience is close to impossible), I'm probably MORE into ingredients and different world cuisines now.

Oh, I also stopped drinking, which I realise must be a big sacrifice for a lot of people, but frankly I've always been more of a stoner anyway.

I turned 33 a month ago. I've really enjoyed my 30s - for the big birthday I had a last-minute party in my house and it was illuminating to see who wanted to come up and did, who wanted to but couldn't and made alternate plans, and who just simply didn't even bother RSVPing. It's been really good in a social sense: I have fewer good friends than I had in my 20s but I like them more because they're not just there by default from hometown nostalgia or sharing classes/workplaces together.

I hated my 20s. My degree was a waste of time and I genuinely don't feel I got anything useful from attending uni - certainly no skills or confidence to enter a working world related to it. I had custody of my brother and then stayed with him when he was old enough to be independent because he was going off the rails and needed an eye kept on him, and that only ended because his wild ways got us evicted. I went through two major episodes of depression, I got mugged at knifepoint, my house was broken into and I had my laptop and my boyfriend's laptop stolen. I had to cut my mother out of my life and haven't spoke to her since my late 20s. Some people have a gap year, I think of my 20s as a gap decade where I just persevered. I may be living through a pandemic and recently made redundant but it still feels easier than life did ten years ago.

But anyway this is all highly dependent on the individual! You might not have as many triggers as I do. And I feel like ibs + and ibs- are radically different experiences anyway (if you even have IBS?).

I have "mild chronic gastritis" apparently, and will probably be confirmed for genetic celiac, and at least some of the FODMAP offenders cause me problems. It's difficult for me to eat out but not impossible. A diet without meat would be a serious problem for me as it's one of the only things that never gives me any trouble--meat & eggs. Anyway, cheers, non-alcoholically, from a sympathetic internet entity!

i've never actually seen an episode of Thirtysomething, was it any good or just boomer yuppie bullshit?

I was actually going to post abt this but got distracted, it was on Hulu a few years ago (though it's not anymore) and I watched a few episodes and it was fascinating but utterly insufferable, everyone seems so old and boring and it's v reflective of a time when there was some fundamental life shift in ppls idk mid 20s? where they "settled down" and stopped having fun. There was so much stuffy, senseless bickering, idk I could not BELIEVE these ppl were supposed to be the same age as me and it made me reflect on how much the experience of being in one's thirties (and societal expectations of being in one's thirties) has shifted over the past 30 years

like this was actually a scene in a TV show that was on some level supposed to be a reflection of How Things Were, barf me out!!!!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=109i42MdAzI

A diet without meat would be a serious problem for me as it's one of the only things that never gives me any trouble--meat & eggs.

Well there's good news there, most meat outside of sausages is low FODMAP friendly! The sauces and condiments that are usually thrown onto it, tho...

I had a phase of trying to eat more vegan after I'd sorted out my ibs troubles, but have allowed myself to wait for the end of the pandemic before picking that back up.

Thirtysomethings made about a time and class of people that could own a home as thirtysomethings, basically

Thank you for the reassurance! Yes I meant that I love and miss legumes but they cause me problems, and I try to eat less meat for the planet's sake but it would be hard to replace it, and dammit can't I have some things I like?

Anyway I'll let you whippersnappers get back to breakdancing.

A bit of legrume for breakdancers

thanks to the comments here i finally set up my work chair after 1 and a half years lol

My work chair has been a game changer. I spent months having RSI flare ups in my hands seemingly out of nowhere and a couple weeks after I got a decent chair it mostly subsided. RSI only threatened to return once, after a recent Hitman 3 bender during which I spent most of my spare time slumped on the couch with my hands fastened to an Xbox controller.

I must have the best desk/chair combo, or the best posture, in the world. I spend almost all my waking hours at home at my desk because my office is also my entertainment room, and I've been happily free of back issues. *knocks every piece of wood in room* *ps i'm not in my 30s*

i've never had issues before, must be super lucky, but for the last year and half i've been working from home on a bench so that's probably not a good thing
glad i've got the chair sorted

Havent room to get a work chair but i must pick up a laptop stand as my neck is in bits lately

Counting down the days to having a home office obv

trying to use a laptop the way its name suggests is absolute murder on the 30-something neck

I really like the thread title implication that everyone in their 30s goes through a breakdancing phase

I sin in three ways

- coffee table, while i sit on couch (lower back fucked)

- as laptop, legs crossed with ikea padded rest, while on bed (legs destroyed)

- kitchen table (neck in ribbons)

I employ a rotation system to ensure that i will essentially be unable to move at all by say july this year

I have a laptop lap desk, and also have a standing desk. I highly recommend standing desks, btw.

post / username thread

catching up on the thread, thanks to Stevie for illuminating me on Thirtysomething. i watched that clip and it was intelligible to me as a TV version of like an 80s Movie For Adults, but also very alien. sort of like the Seinfeld world/characters for me, once i reached their age and realized how much my life did not look like theirs.

also, boxedjoy, so sorry to hear all that. super rough, man.... glad you've come out the other side and are doing ok despite this fucked up world we're living through.

I think of my 20s as a gap decade where I just persevered. I may be living through a pandemic and recently made redundant but it still feels easier than life did ten years ago.

Different circumstances, but yes, this is very much how I feel as well. I've ended up throwing a lot of that decade down the oubliette. Not much that's useful.

One thing is that people who met me when I was a 21-y/o mess and that I'm still friends with now at 34...there's only a few left, but those are friends for life.

Well, I've been on the other side of 34 for a minute now. A thought that weirds me out: I moved to my current city and neighborhood six years ago, when I was 28. In six more years, I'll be 40! I am also a member of the Sore Back Club and I believe this is due to picking up and breaking open enormous wheels of Parmigiano-Reggiano at my old job in my 20s.

Something I wanted to post last time but couldn't find the words to express in that moment: I'd say the biggest change for me at this age, compared to when I was younger, is that I'm less concerned about accomplishing "great" things creatively, and more concerned about just being a kinder, more generous person.

^^^ this, one million percent

I've become infinitely more interested in writing and art as community practices and not some lone- genius shit, it's SO HARD to get rid of that mindset, in one's twenties in particular.

I admit my twenties were composed of a totally bizarre and unlikely set of experiences and circumstances, in many ways, and I'm glad for the perspective they brought me—

Tbf community is a luxury for many, although there's no question that solitary writing is usually framed as haunted by the ghost of Romantic genius or some other nonsense.

? not sure i understand your comment re: community.

Not everyone is part of a community that gives a shit about what they do.

Sure, but I don't think the word "luxury" is the right one to describe the phenomenon of which you're speaking.

Oh it absolutely is, once you've experienced its dearth (see: the 'Belonging' thread).

I recently found one of my high school yearbooks, crazy to go through that and see how young everyone looked. It's weird because I do on occasion have dreams in which these people show up, but in my dreams they look like they're in their mid-30s (but still in high school, having flunked 20 straight years apparently), not as they actually were

― frogbs, Monday, February 22, 2021 4:24 PM (two weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

I did not finish high school and pretty regularly have this dream where I am still in high school having flunked 20 straight years, it's the worst.

Hi all, how is everyone going

I am feeling alternately great and grateful and like a petulant child! What else is new!

All good thanks, I have a week off work

turned 38 a couple of weeks ago, feeling v sanguine abt it

started working out again, let's see how long it lasts this time. managed about three months straight last year until I got COVID and couldn't exercise for more than 10 mins without getting breathless. glad that stage seems to have passed though - now slowly getting back into 30 min routines