Thirty-Three

Had breakfast with an old friend last week, mostly for business and partially just to get caught up.

She told me that she’s decided to stay twenty-five forever and asked me to keep that in mind when her birthday rolls around in the fall, which I certainly promised to do.

It seemed like a sensible idea, so I made a decision to remain thirty-three forever.

In a hundred years time, if we’ve both managed to stay the course, we agreed that we could meet for breakfast again — like Hob Gadling and Morpheus in ‘The Doll’s House‘.

Last year when my birthday rolled around, people would ask how old I was and I’d say “Thirty-three, same as Jesus” which I thought was pretty clever at the time — although now I’m less impressed by my wit, with thirty-four rounding the corner a month or so away.

I suppose this is about the point when you’re supposed to realize that, if “death is a mug’s game” as Hob would have it, then aging is merely foreplay.

Another joke, from when I was twenty-one: “I’m going through mid-life crisis, which means I’ll only live to be forty-two.”

I was younger then.