At my 20th reunion this weekend, I appeared on the panel at our class's State-Of-Your-Life seminar, where we talked about our career paths and by how much they've diverged from our grandiose plans. The highlight of the afternoon came when the moderator asked us, "What's the best thing about turning 40?" And a response came: "Not giving a shit about what people think anymore."
Amen, sister.
Let me tell all you 30-year-old guttersnipes: Reunions get better with age, when people put the brakes on all that Ain't-I-Cool Preening and let what's left of their hair down. You talk, you laugh, you drink, you hug, you drink some more, and you dance your nerdful booty-shake at the dance parties without a care in the world. It's truly exhilarating.
(Oh, and I may have mentioned this blog while I was up there on the dais, so if you were there, or you heard the podcast, "WA-HOO-WAH, bitches!")
If you're new to this blog, you also might not know that I turned 500 months old over Memorial Day weekend. And you know what's strange? If you tell someone you're 500 months old, you might expect that person's eyes to glaze over because a) you're old, and b) you have command of your 12-times tables. But during the few times it came up in conversation, the people I talked to were receptive. One of them actually said, "Whoa! Forty-one and two thirds! Awesome!" Which is why it's great to have friends that keep stoking the furnace of the ol' Geek Train. (Remember, I was an engineer for a semester.)
I had planned a gathering for the actual date, but a lot of friends were out opening up beach houses, marrying off siblings, etc., so I postponed it. I thought it would be cool to have it on D-Day (since D is the Roman numeral for 500 and my first initial), but I thought better of it. That geek factor would have been too much to bear, even for me.
Nevertheless, the day was a good one. Nana and Granddad came to down with Robert's old trike, and TwoBert insists on riding this thing at just about every waking moment. Just as his brother did. He's too short to churn the pedals yet, but he knows enough to bear down on the handle bars and scream "fasterfasterrunningrunning!" When he's finally able to power this thing on his own, and the two boys start propelling themselves in different directions at speeds faster than I can run, that's when trips to the playground will take on a whole new dimension. And Daddy's hamstrings will inevitably stage a walkout.
Much like they are now, after all of this weekend's nerdful booty-shaking.
