Even A Tall Didn't Help

Okay, I'm depressed. Get out the hankies everyone while I share the news...

I'm growing old.

Ugh, it is just as excruciating to write it as it is to think it. Thank God I don't have to say it aloud to anyone. But it's true, and here are some recent examples that are leading me to this enlightenment. One, which I am certainly not happy about, but I need to just face reality (with an unbotoxed forehead still, at this point) and get real -- I am (oh, and this just pains me)
middle-aged.

There are many indications of such. One being I just got my hair cut and colored by a team of twenty-somethings and I tried to keep up with the chat, pretend I am cool, but to no avail. They were on to me. Shit. I wonder how old they really thought I was.

After the haircut and color, in which I was coerced into a 'few' foils by Pam or Mandy or Amanda or Pamela or whateverthehelltheirnameswerebutdiditreallymattercuztheywerejustsostinkingcute... Anyway, after the cut/color combo, I left the salon (and here, if I was really blogger-savvy, I could insert the link to the salon, and I'm sure it must be simple enough, and it's probably something like www.zanos.com --go ahead, try it, see if you get a trendy salon in the midwest)... so, I left the salon and of course, by the law of nature, it was raining and I had no umbrella so now I've got red streaks on my shoulder, but I played a little mind game with myself.

"If I walk by Barnes & Noble and it's open until 11 instead of 10, I go in. If it's open until 10, I go home."

I went in. And got further depressed because almost every new book that looked interesting to me was written by someone who was born in the seventies or eighties!!! And, good God, yes, I am only eight months shy of being a seventies child, but come on!! These people, these mere children, these babes, if you will, are PUBLISHED AUTHORS with the book(s) they've always wanted to write out there on those shelves, making a mockery of the work I am trying to create, the one that is tucked away in this God-awful computer, the one with more than 85,000 words, and more than 300 pages, just sitting there, dying, bleeding, begging to be let out, so the world can read what I have to say!

Ugh, what is my problem here?

I've got the agent, I've got the chick-litty/mom-litty novel with a cute little twist, I've got the lovable characters who are quirky, confused, grappling with life, I've got the office, I've got the five hours free a week where I am exempt from children hanging onto my ankles, begging for me to print out another gd picture of Shrek or Scooby Doo, or the Wiggles, or Rainbow Brite, or pleading for breakfast or lunch, or asking for help with a friendly butt wipe, SO WHY CAN'T I FINISH THIS LITTLE NAGGING NOVEL THAT'S BEEN IN MY HEAD FOR ALMOST THREE YEARS NOW?

Am I afraid? Or just being completely lazy and stupid?

And the icing on the cake that is making me feel really old? On the way home, I was listening to 93.1 XRT (and again, this would be a cool place to slip in the link to this radio station), and the DJ was announcing the tunes he had just played. He mentioned Walk of Life, by Dire Straits is "a couple decades old." Ugh. I remember clearly when that came out.

Next, they'll probably tell me Hungry Like the Wolf, by Duran Duran (my first ever MTV video I viewed) is three decades old.
Shoot me. Or, at least Shoot me up with some botox for crying out loud.