I'm 53 years old. On my birthday it never seems so bad that the number has gone up because it actually never goes up on that day. I learned long ago that it is easier to change the number at my leisure when no one else is paying attention. So sometime in the near future someone will ask my age and I will say "54" while secretly knowing that I am really 53. After saying this false age for a while I will get used to it slowly never suffering the consequences of birthdays to come.10 PRINT "hello world"
20 GOTO 10
This has worked for me for about 20 years but this morning I really felt old. It is a tranformational thing, this getting old stuff. It's nothing sudden for me as it might be for others who, for instance, have to deal with the number "50" on their actual birthdays. Yet, something has changed enough that I was up at nearly 5:00 a.m. contemplating this blog instead of fruitlessly trying to get back to sleep.
Lying was something I discovered and rejected at an early age. This is not to say that I completely rejected it, I just threw the strategy out for anything of importance. I very clearly remember the moment I decided lying was more trouble than it was worth. I was 7 years old and I was riding my bike with my nephew Eddie. I can't remember the subject of the lie, my poor memory has long erased that. It seems like a fundamentally important moment, but I have tried many times to remember the lie I perpetrated. It is just lost, almost remembered, like something on the tip of your tongue, but forever lost. What has never gone away was the visceral feeling of lying, or more acurately, being caught in a lie.
