Sort of a strange feeling thinking that in a year I can expect that card and the requisite tie-like gift (though I’ll press for more useful things like a nice set of flatwounds for my 6-string bass or another hard drive for the server).

Management and I were discussing how our benchmarks for adulthood are rapidly evaporating. First was graduating college, next was my curveball of grad school, then it was buying a home, and lastly having a kid. I told her that I needed to go back to the drawing board and devise more barriers to the club. Maybe things a little more obscure like grey hair, since I shave my head it would be an easy milestone to miss, tucking t-shirts into shorts, or mowing the lawn in athletic socks and dress shoes. Someone out there should always be less hip than I.

It isn’t hard to see that I have a thing about growing up. Not really sure what my hangup is, no one really wants to get old, but for some reason I have this compulsion to feel young to stay relevant and informed. It doesn’t really matter as it is very likely our kid will grow up with the same perception we had of our parents: out of touch. I suppose that in the end I come off as sad as those hipsters featured in that New Yorker article, though I cannot see myself running out to buy a skateboard and hitting the half-pipe on my 38th birthday. If I do, please, someone take a contract out on me. I’ll pay for it.

Then again, you are only as cool as you let yourself feel. Regardless of what my kid thinks at fourteen, I’m going to be a cool dad. The one with the freshest tunes and the inside line on the best local sushi. Knowledge like that equals cred.

Tags: Aging, Family, Hipness

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 18th, 2006 at 1:03 pm and is filed under Family. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.