Thursday, May 11, 2006

This post by Kelly inspired me to write about my own age issues. It's a little bit of a sore spot for me that I look like I'm 18. On a good day, 24. After people get to know me then they guess 28, tops. I'll be 34 this October goddammit!

Now that I'm a student again, I feel way older than my peers because, well, I am way older. But they don't know that. Just the other day, during a break in my Maya I class, I got into a conversation with one of my classmates. I asked him whether he lived in campus housing and he said lived in Belmont and that he takes CalTrain to class every day. Then he asked where I lived and I said the Inner Sunset. He wasn't sure where that was and I explained that it's a neighborhood in the city.

Kid: "In an apartment?"
Me: "No. A house."
Kid: "Really?"
Me: "Yeah, with my family."
Kid: "Oh, that's great. That you have family in the city to stay with and everything."
Me: "No, no - my family. You know, with my wife and two kids. That's what I mean."
Kid: "Oh, uh-huh. [Pause] Oh! Ohhhhhh. Huh."

He didn't say anything after that.

When I was 25 I was travelling with my parents somewhere. The airline attendant was moving our seats around and he was going to put me in the emergency row on the plane. Of course you have to be over 18 to sit in there, so he asked me for ID. The dude carded me to sit in the emergency exit row. My parents got a big kick out of that. Laughed the whole rest of the plane trip. Goddamn airline attendants.