Day 54: Am I Too Old or Are You Just an Idiot?

Does it mean I am old if I go to a nice, swanky restaurant and think the music is too loud and the people too fake? What about if I go to the beach and am annoyed by all the cute, perky teenagers making out? Or if I see kids driving recklessly and shake my head in scorn? At what point do we stop being the kids and start being the adults who mock them? One might think that a family is the key to our change in outlook on what can be described as immature behavior, but I don't have kids so that can't be it. Maybe there is just some wall we run into at a certain point in our life that makes us unable to appreciate the hijinks of youth. I don't consider myself old, but I know that I'd rather have a conversation with the group I am dining with than chair dance.

It is good to stay active and be young. Dancing, laughing, enjoying life are not unique to the under 25 set, but somehow doing all three while dining or driving or anything else you might engage in, is distinctively part of being young. Or maybe it's just that it seems so much more important to be cool and have fun -- or at least look like you are -- than when you mature and aren't afraid to actually say that you want to hear what the people across from you are saying. When did conversation become passe? Why is it not cool to hear someone without them having to scream over a remix of Billy Jean? Am I really just that old, or do I just care more about communicating with my friends and loved ones?

I don't remember places being too loud when I was 25, but then again, I didn't go to very many hip places back then. Perhaps to be cool, you have to be loud or pretend you don't care. Maybe style is not so much about genuine concern over your appearance as appearing like you got dressed in the dark, drunk, and blindfolded. I think maybe I'm too old, smart, and thoughtful to be hip. All I know, is that it's hard to enjoy my dinner when I can't hear myself think. Wow. This might be my the most proud moment of my parents. That in itself is reason enough to wear a bedazzled mini dress and go eat somewhere that smacks of young yuppies trying to hard to be Eurotrash and DJ's who can only get a gig at at restaurant. Maybe I'd just rather be old.