In exactly one week it is my birthday. I will transform with a little puff of smoke from the handsome, vibrant, active, vivacious young man into a dilapidated old man with perpetual bowel irritation and dentures. If only it were that simple.

The slow, steady decline of my body is subtly terrifying. It's a little like watching your house fall apart around you with the contractor telling you that "that's just the way it goes, eh". Granted I'm only turning 34 and that isn't that old (is it?), so it's not as if I have to replace the shingles, replace the boiler, redo the plumbing and wiring, undergo major foundation work, and build a new chimney. For now all I have to do is patch up the cracks, touch up the paint job on the front door, and maybe wash the front windows. That doesn't seem so bad. However, there are a few things I miss about the days when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and I was younger:

1. Being able to stay out until 5AM and still be relatively functional the following that day, or rather, late that day. Come to mention it, I miss having the desire to stay out until 5AM;


2. Eating food so spicy I cry – believe me, no one wants to be around me after such a meal nowadays (see above for "bowel irritation");


3. Knowing where little aches and pains come from;


4. Feeling invincible and optimistic about where my life is going;


5. Trusting people I've just met in social and/or romantic situations without automatically looking for faults and weak points and without wondering how I could possibly fit a new person into my busy, busy oh-so-cool life;


6. Answering, when asked by friends what I want for my birthday, as happened yesterday evening, "Socks. Sheets. Underwear". Socks? Sheets? Underwear? For my birthday? I admit that this request is partly inspired by poverty, but it is not the case that nothing screams love! like having a dear friend say, "Here! Please accept an acrylic sheath for your stinky feet". And then, as if to underline the inanity of my request, my friend and I ran into linguistic difficulties and I had to explain what boxer briefs are exactly. (How does one say "boxer briefs" in Hebrew? בריפים הבוקסר ?) Forget that crap! All I want is a two-four of Keith's and a stack of gay Brazilian porn and to be left alone! (Hi Surly's cool and open-minded parents who occasionally read this blog! Don't forget to wish me a Happy Birthday!)

Of course, there are advantages to aging as well. And if anyone can remind me what they are, that'll be birthday enough for me.

And to the scores people coming to my site by googling "Despatie" and "gay", I'm sorry that I have no good news for you. Despite the fact that I have proclaimed him one of my future husbands, he is straight as far as I know. If in the course your searches you happen to find out differently, please come back and let me know. That would be a pretty good birthday present too.

And now I'm practically a p@edophile. At my age I find myself lusting after a 19-year-old, born when I was already almost an adult already. Vive l'âge d'or!