For a Limited Time Only (Restrictions May Apply)

We accept her, one of us, we accept her, one of us Gooble, gobble, gooble, gobble We accept her, we accept her Gooble, gobble, gooble, gobble! 'They're going to make you one of them, my peacock!' -- Todd Browning's Freaks

Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. -- Ferris Bueller's Day Off

I am about to find myself, in a few months, on the wrong side of 30. Which I can accept. I would rather be 36 than 46; and I'm sure that, when (or if), I turn 46, I'll be thankful that I have a decade left until I turn 56, and so on. But what I can't reconcile with is the ostensibly faster passage of time as I age. Until my late 20s, everything seemed to move at an agreeable pace. It's only when I am reminded that 2007 was seven(!) years ago that the cruel momentum of time's passing becomes a fearsome locomotive, gaining speed with each passing year, until last stop...

...Willoughby?


I am going to die someday, later rather than sooner, Plinko God willing, and hopefully not painfully. I have accepted this idea. But only in theory. I'm not at peace with dying, because I want to keep doing stuff: talking with people I love, getting nudged (not mugged, though) on the subway by some impatient guy, cleaning the grease off of a bicycle chain, eating a burrito at 4 AM with a group of carousers, throwing a snowball at a snowman and appreciating the weird irony, sitting in a movie theater as hundreds of -- or dozens, or a few -- people stare rapt at a white screen and share a communal experience in silence...

Laughing at fart jokes despite myself...eating French-fried potatoes...pretending to not cry at movies...getting indignant when someone notices I'm pretending to not cry and calls me on it...the pretty sound of women talking in hushed tones on the phone...Mario Kart...fucking dachshunds...

I don't want to stop living. One day, though, I will; and the biggest rub is that I won't be able to complain about it. That fills me with terror. If I am no longer Me, how will I know? Everything will vanish. Nothing will be all. How will I know if the Bills win the Super Bowl? How will I know my friends and family are happy when I won't know anything?

I can't fathom nonexistence. I don't think that's an unreasonable statement. Smile, flashbulb...gone.

Souvenirs are 50% off in the gift shop. Tell your friends.