Welcoming middle age with gratitude and snobbery

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Fifty is coming at me like a train. Scheduled arrival: July 5.

The strangest part is not my terror of physical decline. Naw, I can live with the irony that I can still whup my 15-year-old in one-on-one basketball ... just before I collapse with a groin pull.

Lucky for my son, though, to have the opportunity to get to know his dad better. He got a nice glimpse of me, the once-competent basketball player, and then a nice preview of me proto-geezer, grimacing and writhing on the gym floor, gripping my crotch.

His dad's a multidimensional guy.

The strangest part of turning 50 also is not my terror of realizing I'm nearly invisible now at nightclubs and bars. Well, there was this one girl-woman who stopped in front of my bar stool recently to dance seductively in front of me. Sure enough, up popped the Hubba-hubba Window on my brain monitor: "Hey, I recall that you're attracted to female homo sapien primates with those eyes and that hair and a body shaped like that."

Unfortunately, then she began to speak. I think she was telling me about all that she'd had to drink. I think. You've heard of Spam Blocker for computers? Well, somewhere along the way I uploaded my brain with Stupid Drunk Blocker. The Hubba-hubba Window closed without a fight.

No, the strangest part of 50 is the overwhelming sense I have of starting all over. Like everything before this was just some protracted rehearsal. Like maybe I just read about some guy in his teens, 20s, 30s and 40s. Like what I have described heretofore as my greatest joys and my greatest sufferings will both pale when compared with what is up ahead. Like I don't know anything. At all.

I used to have this List of Certainties. One column was marked "Things I know about myself that are meritorious and just all-around pretty cool." Another column was marked "Gross character flaws that I'd change immediately if I had an ounce of character." As I head for 50, I'm aware that I'm abandoning both lists. I'm not at all sure either is very accurate; and even when accurate, not particularly relevant.

I just know that some things about being me are really fun for me. Other things make me wonder why I have any friends at all.

The strangest part of turning 50 is noticing the two new columns that are dominating my List of Certainties: gratitude and snobbery. You wouldn't think those two things would be related, but they are. The more I'm aware of my gratitude, the more surgically selective I become regarding how I spend my time, and who I spend it with.

Life is stunningly brief, and when you "get" that, gratitude and snobbery seem the only logical response.

I no longer feel obligated to finish a bad book.

I don't spend time with mean people, or with people who need me to feel badly about myself, even if I'm related to them.

I terminate poisonous relationships. Just like that.

I trust myself to know the difference between true art and when I'm being jacked around by a poser.

I will not allow myself to be bored. Boredom is a sin.

I'm willing to suffer for a profound value, but I'm no longer willing to suffer just so willful stupidity or corruption can continue in blithe oblivion. I either speak up, or go do something else.

On Thanksgiving I practiced gratitude. I reflected on the absolutely absurd, ridiculously long list of joys and blessings in my life for which I can take no credit whatsoever. And I also practiced my snobbery. I refused to eat Thanksgiving dinner with people who are ambivalent about me. I ate with people who both know me and love me. They're nice to me. Fun to be with.

And had they overcooked the turkey, I'd have concentrated on the wine and the side dishes.

Life is too short to eat dry turkey breast.

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