Poll: what's the worst part of getting old?

that comedian was funny. he said: "Remember, 100% of failure comes from trying."

― scott seward

my ex used to say that. "well, you tried. and you know what the lesson of that is? Never Try."

your ex was Homer Simpson?(!)

While I was 17 and a high school student I took the NMSQT. Some months later I got a letter in the mail telling me that I had qualified as a National Merit Scholarship Finalist (nb: oddly, this honor did not qualify me for any kind of scholarship whatsoever, but it sounded very impressive).

The letter also informed me that because I had such an elite intellect it was my destiny to become one of the leaders of my nation in some capacity. I read that and irately thought "who the fuck are these people to tell me what to do with my life? they don't know me and I don't know them." Then I tossed the letter in the wastebasket.

― more difficult than I look (Aimless)

oh yeah that's a whole big thing. when i took my PSAT i got the same letter and where i grew up it was a Very Big Deal and it was impressed upon me that it was something to be taken Very Seriously. i actually got a semi-finalist letter... they only made you a finalist when they'd done a background check to make sure you weren't a communist or something. people in my school spent a lot of time trying to be national merit scholars.

so i did too. i had to live up to my reputation as a Clever Boy. see, you could become a national merit finalist by (a) not being a communist and (b) getting a good grade on the PSAT or NMSQT or whatever the equivalent in your region was, but to be a national merit _scholar_ you had to impress the people deciding it with your _character_. so i joined a high school club that did performative charity. after i sliced the palm of my hand open trying to do some meaningless bit of performative charity, i concluded that being a successful person wasn't particularly worth it.

but because i had a strong work ethic, i worked very, very hard at being a failure. i was very successful at it, by which i mean i failed completely at it and turned out to be a successful, accomplished person anyway. i accomplished this by dressing as a girl, which surprised me because i had been taught that this was the _single worst thing i could possibly do_ and would ruin my life forever.

the worst part of getting old is realizing that you failed puberty and you're going to have to re-take it. also the best part of growing old, though, so it evens out.

your ex was Homer Simpson?(!)

― Philip Nunez

no, homer simpson is a notorious joke thief and stole all of my ex's best material

One of my college-age kids got an invitation to some pay-for-play "national scholar" organization. They tried very hard to make it look like he was being offered some kind of prestigious honor. That kind of shit irritates me to no end.

My grandmother, who died at 103, told me not long before she died, "I feel like I've done everything in life I wanted to do." It has stayed with me as the place I would like to be at the end.

#winning

Best way to accomplish yr goals in life is to never have any.

Once in a while I can recognize a shadow of what life was like 20 years ago and that’s a good feeling

The increasing impossibility of getting through a single post on here longer than five words without a typo, dropped word, etc. (which I can't blame on a cell phone). I'm not sure how much of that is attributable to age, and how much is being too lazy to read over what I've typed. Or if there's any difference.

Still voting for friends/loved ones dying but the physical aches and pains have crept up this year

100 pct of my typos and post errors are due to the dumbass phone

(xpost) Needless to say, those two--and a thousand other things--are worse. But I find the typos exasperating and dispiriting.