Journal log entry – Do you have a terrible time judging people’s ages? I see … a few of you who’ve been indicted for statutory rape have your hands up … but … anyone else? Does this ring true to anyone: when I look back to when I was in elementary school, I have to believe that my teachers were as old then as I am now, but I feel younger than what I, back then, thought them to be? Some, if I really consider it, I think were even several years junior to what I am now, and believe me, this took a lot of grinding and sawdust on my part, and smoke out my ears to see this. And it startled me.

Maybe another’s age is relative to what you are. Of course if you are ninety years old you call someone who is sixty a youngster, and if you are a kid, you call that same person grandpa. But my problem is when someone says, “How old do you think she is?” and I’m not too sure, and in all honesty, I’m afraid of getting hit by the woman if I open my mouth. I tell you, I tend to be shocked, when I discover the age of someone who is as old as me, but who I’ve always believed older (To be more precise, what actually happens is I mumble, “Damn” as my body collapses, and I quickly excuse myself, saying, “I need to go to the bathroom.” and find a mirror to hopefully put my fears to bed.).

Do I not look as old as they do? Maybe it’s a height thing. If I were six feet tall, maybe then I’d feel I looked older. The population is shrinking. Maybe that’s what confounds me. It’s a good thing I’m not a police officer. You can’t believe how many times I would have pulled a driver over and been wrong in asking if their mommy or daddy knew they were out, while checking their safety belt and booster seat. I mean, there has to be some sort of system to figure out ages. How about if I believe someone is too young and add ten years to what I think they are? Then I’ll probably be right or in the ballpark. If I think someone looks old, subtract ten. I honestly believe this might help me … and some women might love me for it … some men too … I guess. You see, people either look too young to me, or too old. I can’t seem to find anyone who looks their age. But you know, it’s the twenty year olds that look too young, almost adolescent, and the forty and fifty years old that seem decades on the other side of retirement. Where are the thirty-somethings? They’re the new forties. Granted there are the exceptions, like those twenty year olds that look like thirty-somethings, but no matter how I turn and twist it, I just can’t find people who look their age. And what goes on in the middle is what I want to know. How do people look too young, but then look too old? They never seem to meet their true age, but are suddenly older. Stress, booze, cigarettes … are they to blame like time warps that have been set to express and miss all the local stops?

Now here is a strange thing about it, and I don’t know if it is the knowing, which tells my mind to believe it, or some psychological mumbo jumbo to help me deny that I’m getting older myself, but people I have known through many years tend to remain in a bubble separated from the rest of humanity. They don’t look older than what they are … with a few exceptions. Holy sugar, I think it was a five year reunion after high school and this one guy came back looking like a stogie-eating dick, who can’t pay his bills and has been through five wives, out of an old detective movie. He wasn’t sick or anything, but I definitely believe he did the stress, booze, and cigarette thing. He’d gone on to Wall Street instead of college. “Ah…” Some of you brokers are acknowledging that.

But maybe it’s an attitude thing, how one carries himself. I know a kindergartner who I have to keep telling myself is not a midget collecting on a pension. He’s right in your face, or rather your knee cap, telling you what is what, and not afraid to do it.

How about provocative dress? How about that? Oh … yes, I see the same fellas from before with their hands up again … right. Well provocative dress does make the younger girls look older … and the older girls look … well … ancient. Sorry, but it only seems to work in that direction.

And how about this: People used to die normally at the age of forty, now the life expectancy is closer to seventy five and eighty. Maybe some people haven’t been filled in on the last two hundred years … now that’s something to be said for history classes. You see, those middle-agers, who don’t know, have subconsciously let rigor-mortis set in prematurely.

Then of course you have those who believe in the motto: Live large and die young, and leave a good looking corpse … but the problem is they’ve forgotten to die, and more or less now mirror the resident of an exhumed sarcophagus. (Note: This might be related to the recent fascination with Zombies.)

I can go on and on and not really have a definitive explanation. Maybe it all does depend on me … but not because of how old my eyes get … but maybe because of how young at heart I am … or then again … maybe because of both. Or maybe it’s because of how hard people hit the world and how hard the world hits them back. See … I just don’t have the explanation … and perhaps … that’s because there is no one explanation … but many.

What about Botox?

No … no, that’s not an explanation at all. It doesn’t make you look older or younger. It just makes you look lumpy.

 Signing off,

Roger and out