(no subject)

How the hell am I 40?

I never pictured myself being this old, but here I am. Another year, and the bastards ain't got me yet.

• What a long, strange trip it's been - I remember:


• Nixon being in office, if only vaguely


• Being the remote control for the family TV


• Waking up to see Geroge of the Jungle and coming home to see Star Blazers (and that anime was called "Japanimation" back then)


• Watching Star Trek every weeknight, and practically having to be pried with crowbars away from the tube if dinner time conflicted with me seeing my stories


• Seeing the first space shuttle flight, and looking forward to when an Enterprise was actually going to fly in space (since I didn't grok that this was just the Beta shuttle test)


• The shock of the news that Reagan had been shot - I mean yeah, I grew up in Dallas; I knew that there were such things as Presidential assasinations, but I thought they were something that only happened in the past


• Getting into a heated argument with my Speech/Debate teacher, bot of us realising at almost the exact same instant that we were arguing the same thing from slightly different directions, and quoting Cool Hand Luke at each other in stereo to each let the other know we finally Got It


• Walking the streets of Athens, Greece at night, alone but unafraid


• Walking through Hatchepsut's tomb in the Valley of the Kings


• The unreality of the Challenger explosion being repeated in an endless loop on the school library television screens during my 3rd period stint as a Library Aid


• Sending an invitation to my high school graduation to President Reagan, because although there was no reason to expect he'd show up, hey, you never know, right?


• The card I got with him and Nancy's signatures on it in reply

And way too many other things to pick from right now. Damn, but I've led a full life so far. Here's hoping that if this turns out not to be middle age after all, it's because I still haven't hit the midpoint yet. There's too many things that I could never have imagined that actually did in the first forty, and I'm curious as hell to see what things I still can't imagine wind up happening in the rest of them.