I am about to be 40, which looks absolutely stupid on paper. Me, 40. That's not even a thing. That's just, not. I'm not supposed to have gone this long. I set my timeline at the age of 23, and it did not include hitting 40.

I can remember when my mom turned 40. I was a teenager, and the party they had was loud and went very late, with a funeral theme. I was, of course, not involved in the party itself...I stayed in my room, Walkman blaring The Wall through my headphones, reading One Hundred Years of Solitude for ironic effect.

When my mom turned 40 she'd been married, had kids, been to clown college (or whatever it was she did), been divorced, been a Realtor(tm), been a secretary, a shop clerk, a salesgirl, a waitress, a hair dresser, and finally remarried and, at 40, was just starting a new career of Chinese watercolor, all while being a mom that provided, and provided well, with a spine of goddamn iron.

At 40, I'm still married, no kids yet, same career(ish) for twenty years. I've lived on both coasts(ish) and the Republic of Texas (the longest I've lived in any one place since I was a teen is my current house). Clock and I have recorded two albums (one a cover of a Pink Floyd album that we did in one day, three takes or less per track).

My mom at 40 was what moms were at 40: parental. Imagine a mom in 1965. That was my mom in the 1980s. Just at the cusp of the self-centered 70s, just started to get a feel for what her life could be minus wife and mother labels.

My dad at 40 was a mess. Third marriage, oddly shaped career, still trying to be in a band, struggling to keep up with his sons who outweighed him intellectually and athletically.

Me at 40 is something new, to me anyway. I am, on the one hand, one of those guys who sees himself as 30 years old. Thirty two was probably my best year as a human being: the perfect amount of struggle and satisfaction. I still play video games. I try to make music and sometimes succeed. I work to enable two lives: mine and that of wife.

I have two dogs, a car payment, a mortgage, and a subscription to Automobile Magazine. Statistically, I am everyone my age.

My expectations for this decade (at least, when I wasn't positive that I was going to be dead by 38) were thus:
Drop out of society, find a small sustainable plot of land in the Gila Wilderness, and live off of meager savings, wits, and determination. Be dead by 50.

We'll see what happens. The only real goal I have this year is to go to Paris with the wife for Christmas. In two years, we'll hopefully be in Seattle for a living. In five, maybe Canada. In ten, I'd better be dead because all this planning is a pain in the ass.

Expect more of this sort of crap as I get closer to Burt Reynolds' birthday because, goddamn. Forty. I did, this morning, lift 300 pounds off my chest fifteen times. I'm physically stronger than I have ever been. Mentally, maybe not so much. Guess I'll find out as the time approaches.