– seen on my birthday card from dini and budin

i turned 36 yesterday, in manchester.

boy, that must be old. i hold on to the adage age is only a number, but then i am sure that was conjured up by old people. like the size-doesn’t-matter axiom that is perpetually spouted by people with small dicks.

a lot of people i know tell me that i don’t look that old (yeah, it’s really difficult to have to pay these people. hehe.). my friends of my generation (i am a few days too late to be a child of the 60’s) probably wouldn’t know the difference. on the other hand, i have heard that some people don’t think i act my age. no, i don’t go around singing negaraku when prompted by the ah pek ice cream seller. not that i have, but i don’t. far from it.

so, am i that old then? do i feel old? biologically, there are certain things which i have to be careful of as the point of no return was like 6 years ago. my risk of dying from the usual causes of death have now increased a wee bit, if not exponentially. then again, being young(er) doesn’t necessarily equate a degree of quasi-immortality either. watch out for that bus when you cross that street, kid. otherwise, i sincerely don’t feel any older one bit. i feel the same as i did ten years ago. i still listen to rawk. i still talk the same way. i am still single.

why is that, then? am i living in denial by hanging out with people who were born on the day i was boarding that plane in subang to LHR to do my A-levels? i guess it boils down to my life circumstances.

after most of my batch mates leave the country on graduating, i had housemates who were a few years younger than i was. when it was my turn to graduate from medical school, i started work and despite maintaining contact with my erstwhile college mates, i then had a newer circle of friends who are much younger. they then graduate, and my next circle got even younger, and so forth. to the point that there is / should be a glaring generation gap. such is the price of living my life the way i do.

is it because i am not married that i don’t suscribe to the striped, tucked-in baleno polo shirt image and elba slacks, talking about golfing at saujana and comparing notes on which bukit bintang health spa that has the best hooker from beijing? then again, you could still be clad in helmut lang and prada and talk about golf and compare notes on which which health spa that has the best hooker from beijing. i simply digress.

i do sometimes wonder whether i am trapped in some sort of temporal limbo, where whilst i indulge in my love for loud music, the occasional bumming around and PSPs, i manage to play the part of the man with a job, paying exorbitant taxes and saving up for that down payment for a detached house in the suburbs. i wouldn’t think many of my contemporaries who moved on to married life with the two and a half kids have this problem, if you want to see it as such. i have currently no responsibility to care for that child, who will one day go to school, wanting a sony PS6 for her 12th birthday and go to imperial college reading material sciences. and that is only daughter #1. rest assured, i will carry that burden when the time comes, when i will readily and valiantly forsake the want of owning a mint 1973 strat (until i have a mid-life crisis, that is).

after the trick birthday candles, the moistest and most luscious chocolate gateau, the logitech gizmo, tomes by plato and machiavelli, thornton chocs and cards, one thing for sure, i do know the 36 years have made me wiser.

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on a lighter note, a few friends and i would be trying our luck in procuring tickets for the sold out fall out boy gig in nottingham this saturday. check out the video on the sidebar. just think oh carol, i am bloody fool. thanks to wong for the heads up.