Tag: aging

May as well tell the whole world

On By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy11 Comments

tmi.png.htmlI thought, for reasons that will quickly become quite obvious, that maybe I ought to not go ahead and fill the Internet in on certain recent developments in my life.  But I’ve been pretty open about being on anxiety medication since they put me on it, and this is related to that, so to hell with it.  A warning: if you know me personally, it’s possible that you might not want to read this.  Certain of you I’m giving license to never ever stop mocking me again, which… eh.  It’ll be okay.

So, to get straight to the point: I’ve taken myself off of Lexapro.  If I were a more intelligent human I would probably be weaning myself off Lexapro, but I’m not an especially intelligent human and I was on a pretty low dose to begin with so I’m cold-turkeying the shit.  I had several reasons for making this decision.  One of the big ones was that I’m not in the environment (teaching) that led me to need Lexapro in the first place, so the direct cause of my anxiety issues is gone.  The biggest one, though?  It turns out that one of the rarer side effects of drugs like Lexapro is…

…this is the part where you stop reading, if you ever want to not think of this when you see me or talk to me again…

…urinary incontinence.

I have had, perhaps once a month in the past six months, what I will describe as a “bloop” and assume that your imagination can fill in the details.  They have always happened when I was asleep, always when I was on my back, and have always instantly awakened me, at which time I’ve cleaned myself up, swearing profusely under my breath, and gone back to sleep.  Last week, it happened twice in two days, and what was previously merely an excessively irritating thing that I was attributing to getting older abruptly had me Googling things like “prostate cancer.”  There’s never been an issue when I was awake, although I feel like I’ve been having to race to the bathroom more urgently in the last year than I had previously.

Now, it’s a rare side effect.  But I was seriously considering calling a doctor and scheduling a prostate exam, and if I can just go off a drug I already don’t want to be on rather than enduring a prostate exam, I think maybe I’ll try that first.(*)

So I did a couple things:  I stopped taking my Lexapro and also stopped drinking pop, since caffeine and sugar have also been linked to urinary incontinence.  Not only have I had no nocturnal issues since then, but I’ve slept through the night most of the nights since then.  It has been months since I slept through the night five nights in a row; waking up at 3:30 in the morning needing to take a piss five or six times a week was also something that I had previously attributed to getting older that may have been caused by the drugs.  It’s only been a week, mind you, and until last week this was not a thing that happened frequently, but the absence of further bloops and being able to sleep through the night have me thinking I’m probably on to something.

Negative side effects of stopping Lexapro have been minimal; I was weirdly dizzy today and that’s been about it.  I haven’t noticed the anxiety coming back, really; I did let everyone at work know that I was off my brain meds and that if they thought I was behaving strangely they needed to let me know right away.  Predictably, this has led to every fucking interaction I have with anyone now involving someone accusing me of being overly emotional, because the people I work with are caring and serious grown-ups.

(*) The word first means “first,” not “only,” just to be clear.  I have since discovered that they’re recommending annual prostate exams start at 40 now instead of 50, so I actually will be talking to my doctor about that soon, and I’m not as het up about the idea as most men seem to be.  I’ll tell you about it if it’s a funny story, but I don’t expect it to be a big deal.  Just be aware that I’m not ignoring it.

Tech and Tattoos: a generational inquiry

On By Luther M. SilerIn Geek10 Comments

i-xRDcb5d.jpgAnyone with any aptitude for technology has encountered this scenario, right?  The Family Tech Support issue, where you’re stuck between just fixing their problem, whatever it is, and refusing to help at all and just screaming read the words on the screen over and over again until they either help themselves or hang up on you.  And that last panel is always the end result of any of these conversations.

It’ll happen to you, too, they say, or maybe you think it to yourself.  Sooner I’ll be relying on my kids to help me figure out why the clock in my ocular implant is always blinking 12:00 over and over again, or I’ll need my son to point out to me that the reason my touchscreen “doesn’t work” is because I won’t just touch the thing and insist on stabbing at it with the tip of my finger like I’m hitting a key on a manual typewriter.

Lemme change the subject for a second.

I have six tattoos, and I’ve been fighting the urge for a seventh for the last few weeks– in fact, I’ve woken up a few times in the last few weeks convinced that I was going to go get another one that day.  When I got my first one (and this was 20 years ago now) I heard from my parents exactly what every other person my age heard from their parents.

“What are you going to do when you’re 80 and you still have that?”

And here’s the thing (and let me be clear, I’m not talking about my parents specifically here; this is a widespread cultural phenomenon): when people ask you that, they’re suffering from a weird sort of blind spot: they’re thinking of old people now, who are comparatively less likely to have tattoos unless they were in the Navy or something.  When I’m 80– which, good luck, fat boy– I will console myself with the knowledge that probably 70% of the rest of the 80 year olds sharing space with me in the nursing home will also have tattoos.  It will be normal.  Yeah, they’ll all be saggy and blurry and faded.  So the fuck what?  It’s not going to be weird at all.  2/3 of people my age have tattoos and we will still have tattoos when we are old.

Let’s talk video games.  When I was a kid, playing video games was a thing For Kids.  The notion that there would ever be jobs connected to video games was considered ludicrous; video games were a thing that we were all going to Grow Out Of, and they’d stay a Thing for Kids forever.  Why?  Because in the late eighties the Nintendo was a Thing for Kids.

I’m 40 and still playing video games, and I suspect a fair number of the people who were playing Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out with me are too.  And I suspect a lot of those who aren’t are likely out of gaming because of reasons unrelated to maturity.

So, I ask you: how likely is it really that people my age are going to have to be calling our kids to get basic tech shit explained to us in 20 years?  In ten, when my son is 15?  What exactly is going to change about me or the way I look at the world that’s going to cause me to lose the ability– or, more importantly, the desire, because that’s actually the salient difference here– to figure new shit out, other than actual dementia?

Nothing.  It ain’t gonna happen.  Will there be some aspects of technology/Future Life that I’m not going to get?  Sure, but that’s because of youth culture, not because of the tech itself.  I don’t know what the fuck Tumblr is for, and I don’t really get Snapchat, but my confusions are more of the why would you want to do this variety rather than I need this to make my life work, please show me how to use it.  

At 40, I’m about as old as you can be and still claim to be a “digital native,” a phrase more likely to be applied to millennials than people my age.  But I grew up with this shit, and the upbringing my son is getting right now is really not that different from my own childhood.  My first home game system was an Atari.  I had a Commodore 64/128 that I used to dial into local BBS systems over a 300 baud modem.  I spent so much time on BBSes that my parents had to install a second phone line in my bedroom.  I had a cell phone in 1995 or 1996, way before most people had them.  I still tend to be an early adopter in a lot of ways and my affinity for tech stuff is a key part of my personality.

And all of this is just supposed to go away at some point, when I have to start calling my son for tech support?  When, exactly?  When am I going to stop being myself, absent some sort of literal mental deterioration?(*)  It’s not going to happen.  This is just as much of a canard as Old People Don’t Have Tattoos or You’re Going to Grow Out of Gaming.

Or maybe I’m just hugely immature.  I dunno.

Somewhat unrelated contention: I hate the phrase “Generation X” and always have.  Gen Xers are older than me; I’m not one of them.  Millennials are younger than me and I’m not one of them either.  You may refer to my generation as either Generation Star Wars or Generation Nintendo; they both work as far as I’m concerned.

The clearest sign of whether you are in my generation or you are a millennial is this, by the way: if Pokémon was part of your childhood, you are a millennial.

The end.

(*) I am, and I hope this is obvious, not suggesting that people who aren’t good with technology are suffering from some sort of disorder.  But if it were to happen to me, it would probably be a sign that I needed to go see somebody.  That’s all I’m saying.

In which that’s the end of that

On By Luther M. SilerIn Parenting2 Comments

13924956_10207106946609831_2157559779804713497_n.jpgSummer ends tomorrow, as the boy returns to school and my schedule changes not at all.  It’s going to be a weird couple of weeks, as all the other kids from his class (all of whom, as you may recall, are older than him) are moving on to kindergarten and he’s remaining in preschool.  I remain firmly convinced that having my 11-year-old taking math with 13-year olds, as would have inevitably occurred down the road had we not done this, would have been a bad idea, but for right now we need to make sure that he understands that the reason he isn’t in kindergarten with his friends is not because he’s dumb.  He hasn’t said anything like that to us yet, but he apparently made a comment to my mom along those lines a couple of weeks ago.

Managing to have a baby right at the beginning of school is one of the more spectacular examples of poor timing during my life, by the way.

Meanwhile: the water feature we had to build in our basement the other day has proven to be merely a massive inconvenience and not actually anything one might use the word “disaster” to describe, and certainly not anything that affects us financially.  The basement is currently dry and our sump pump made it through the night without exploding.  Not everyone was so lucky; the picture above is the parking lot of a local grocery store (note the car in the middle distance) and the store is pretty much completely destroyed, as is a nearby day care that is the south-side version of the one my son’s been attending.  We got lucky.  Lots of other people didn’t.  Turns out that getting two inches more rain in a day than the area has ever measured before is bad, guys.

So, yeah.  School tomorrow.  I plan to get my review of Stranger Things written, and maybe I’ll break tradition and actually work on Tales from the Benevolence Archives instead of just talking about it.  We’ll see.

#Weekendcoffeeshare: Elderly Curmudgeon edition

On By Luther M. SilerIn Stories4 Comments

newcoffee

If we were having coffee, I’d be… Hm.  I’m not actually sure what I’d be doing at the moment.  This is a big week of transitions in my life, right?  I’ve been at training for the last two weeks, but tomorrow my new career actually starts.  I’ve been an educator since late 2000.  I’m a furniture salesman now.  Most of me is really looking forward to this but a big part of me still can’t help but see it as a mid-life demotion.  Will I get over it?  I expect to.  But I don’t know.

Oh, and also, I turn 40 on Tuesday.  There will be a whole post for that, and I don’t want to burn the entire Holy Shit I’m 40 And My Imminent Death Is Staring Me In The Face post on a coffee share, but there’s some of that going on too.  Or maybe not?  I’ve been telling people I was 40 for a year, as I mostly skipped 39.  I’ll be at work for eleven hours on my birthday, so it’s not like I’ll have a lot of time to get all kvetchy about things.  But maybe I will anyway?  Or maybe I’ll be OK with it?  I dunno.  I won’t know for real until it’s official.

Nah, if we were having coffee, I think I’d mostly be interested in looking to see if I could get you to indulge in bitching about fireworks with me.  Some of the neighbors put on, oh, a two-hour display last night while I was at OtherJob?  And it was pretty, but it was mostly loud.  And I got some of the clearest evidence yet that I’m getting old, because by the end of the night I was muttering Jesus fuck, ENOUGH every time something exploded nearby.  I sort of want to keep the boy up late tonight and take him to see something– we are in a shitty part of our timezone, and it doesn’t get properly dark this time of year until nearly 10:00–  but I certainly found that I could do without the damned things last night.

So, yeah, maybe the goal for this coffee share is to keep you talking.  My gripes are all pretty predictable at the moment.  How’s it going?

On minor milestones

On By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy3 Comments

Pebbles_smallMy son started preschool today.  I understand at some point he shit himself; for as much as they’re charging I don’t feel bad about them having to change a diaper or two.  Or, like, underwear, I guess; he doesn’t wear diapers anymore, but saying that sounds better

That same son turns four on Sunday.  I bought him an awesome Transformer toy that turned out to be much more shoddily made than I would have expected, but he appears to love the hell out of it.

I also bought myself a toy tonight, only when I buy my son a “toy” it’s a cool Transformer, and I want to play with it as much as he does, and when I buy myself a “toy” nowadays it’s a god damn blood pressure cuff and I use it to make sure I’m not dying.

Yay.  Adulthood.

(My novels are still on sale!  Buying one will cheer me up.)

When the hell did I get this old?

On By Luther M. SilerIn Uncategorized6 Comments

photo

Okay, I don’t take ibuprofen before bed every night, but c’mon.  I’m 38 not 83.

Speaking of lazy…

On By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy, Stories11 Comments

photoA friend of mine turned forty on Tuesday.  This is (I think) the first time this has happened, which is kinda weird.  I have friends who are forty or older, but this is the first example I can think of of a friend turning forty who was not yet forty when we started associating with each other.*

It makes me feel terribly old by proxy.  I’m not 40 yet, but I can sure as hell see it from here, and not in a Sarah-Palin-and-Russia sort of way, but an “across the goddamn street on a bright and sunny day” sort of way.

(Related, short anecdote: I got into an argument with my brother a couple of weeks about how old he was.  I was wrong– not because I didn’t remember how old he was, but because I didn’t remember how old I was and I therefore did the math to arrive at his age incorrectly.  This is a true fucking story, I swear to God.  I was off by a solid year, and I think I’d managed to spend a couple of months thinking I was 38 rather than it being a one-time brainfart.)

Anyway.  Speaking of me being ancient, let’s talk about my latest life decision.  I’m sitting in it right now.  There’s a picture of it right there.  I have decided that the best move to make with my current life is to become an Old Man with a Recliner.  It is not literally “my” chair in the sense that I lay sole claim to it, but I’m starting to believe that it’s mine anyway.  My wife called it “Daddy’s Chair” to my son almost the very second he noticed it.  I’ve never owned a recliner before, but our couch is developing issues and we needed at least one new place for people to sit in the living room anyway, so I figured I may as well go Full Lazy.  Very soon I will start demanding that dinner be on the table when I get home and possibly learning how to snore.  Because that is what Old Men with Recliners do, right?  Sure.

I turned my phone on during my prep period (I got a prep today!) to discover that there was a two minute old voicemail from the delivery guys that they were sitting in my driveway wondering where the hell I was.  “Where I was” was at work, since the damn chair was supposed to be delivered on Saturday.  How do I know this?  Because I have a full time damn job, and my wife has a full time job, and why the hell would I schedule a delivery on Thursday during ISTEP week when I know damn well neither of us are going to be home?  I didn’t, that’s how, and I didn’t get the phone call yesterday to tell me when the delivery was supposed to be like they said I would either, because if I had than I would have rescheduled with those people.

I called the guy right back and was in the early stages of “this is not what was supposed to happen and frankly I’m pretty pissed about it even though I know it’s not specifically your fault” when I realized that I was having the conversation in an empty classroom because I didn’t have any students.  At which point I abruptly reversed direction and asked the guys if they minded waiting ten more minutes and raced home.  I sat in my chair for about a minute and a half before heading back to work and nearly fell asleep during that minute and a half.  That comfortable.

Further updates on my inevitable transformation to Recliner Guy will surely be posted as they happen, unless becoming Recliner Guy makes me too lazy to write any more.

(*) I’ll give it ten minutes until someone pops up on Facebook to point out how terribly wrong I am.

In which being old is bad until it isn’t anymore

On By Luther M. SilerIn Music, Parenting1 Comment

LatyrxIf you’ve been reading for a while you probably have an idea that my music tastes are pretty catholic; I listen to all sorts of shit, but my heart has always been with hiphop.  I enjoy flooring my students with this; I suspect fat old white dudes aren’t exactly the demographic they associate with rap music, although I do lose some cred as soon as they figure out that I don’t listen to a single artist any of them have heard of, although I’m fond of pointing them toward good shit whenever I can.

Those two gentlemen there are Lyrics Born and Lateef the Truthspeaker, and they are two of the greatest rappers alive at the moment.  They both do solo work but together they’re a duo called Latyrx.  (Easier to pronounce than you think; mix the first syllable of “Lateef” with the last syllable of “Lyrics.”)  Their appropriately-titled second album, The Second Album, came out not too long ago.  It’s fucking brilliant.  Go buy it.

They did a show in Chicago last night.  I didn’t go.  I didn’t even try.  Guys, it killed me to pass up a chance to see this show; I’ve not been a huge fan of some of the live hiphop shows I’ve seen/heard in the past (Tupac’s live album is an embarrassment to music itself, and I love Tupac) but LB has actually already released a live album and it’s magnificent.  There’s no way these two don’t put together an awesome show.  But… leave my lovely wife and the kid here, drive to Chicago in twenty below bullshit weather, stand in line outside for the show in– again– twenty below bullshit, see the show, then stay the night in Chicago somewhere and come home?  Ehh…

(And speaking of twenty below bullshit, these guys are both from the Bay area.  They took the stage in full winter coats and hats.  I find that hilarious.)

I did a bit of mourning, honestly.  Then I started seeing Tweets this morning from the two of them from just before midnight (my time) that were saying things like “about to go on stage!” and I did a little bit more, because I went to bed a bit after midnight last night (we had a couple of friends over for game night) and it nearly killed me.  No way I can survive a  show that doesn’t even really get started until that late; not anymore.  I’m too damn old.  Which is sad and moderately embarrassing.  Oh well.  Maybe they’ll release the show.

Guess what.  Livestream of the entire show.  Bam.  

And I can watch the entire damn thing from my comfy office chair or my TV tomorrow, since due to the aforementioned twenty below bullshit I’m off work again.  I love the Internet.  I get to see the show and I got to actually get some sleep and spend last night with my family.

Maybe being ancient isn’t so old after all.  🙂