it is only a matter of time before i love the 90's, featuring the future-time equivalents of such comic masterminds as hal sparks and donal logue, riffing on alternative nation, monica lewinsky, furbies and such. i dread the split screen where scott weiland from stone temple pilots, ruthie from 7th heaven and ann powers warble "genie in a bottle." and i can tell you right now that i am NOT interested in ostensibly witty, yet thoroughly nonsensical commentary from ally mcbeal's portia de rossi, marilyn from northern exposure or the fat guy from jag. and don't get me started on how much of 90210's ian ziering you'll be seeing.

i suppose i have a hard time acting my age, down to the just a tad too roomy brown cord jacket that works the overgrown school boy thing. on wednesday, in a much-anticipated return to klatch, my summertime morning mainstay, i got to chatting with the girl who works there about school (performing arts), work (4 jobs right now) and the future (math teacher). she asserted rather innocently that she planned to work really hard and then you know retire at 36. i smiled and said, as the realization swept over me, "god, that's soon." to which she inquired disbelievingly, "how old are you?". her response to my reply was "well, you carry it well." last night, at drinks, i got carded. probably because of the company i was keeping, but still.

thank god, vh1 brings me harshly back to reality, by offering ashanti and mandy moore's thoughts on fraggle rock, though i am fairly certain that neither pop cultural barometer was even alive in 1983. of course, i was 13 and much like michael ian black, we didn't have the cable (or even electricity or a phone, but that is a different narrarive altogether) so, my experience of the fraggles was purely secondhand. i don't think i missed much, which was the point. at least, i think that was the sardonic point this segment was supposed to be making. now, don't get me wrong. i enjoy snarky 20-20 hindsight as well as the next guy, but something about this most recent round smells wrong. mostly, i think people that ARE funny are much more to my taste than people who THINK that they are funny. it is the difference between saying something bitter and saying hey look i'm saying something bitter. it is a fine line, i'll admit, but there nonetheless.

i'm not sure where i was going with this. maybe something about appearance vs. reality. maybe something about the substance of reality. maybe something about growing old gracefully. maybe something about living fast and dying young. the one thing i do know is that i never felt younger than i did in 1999, the year i turned 29. like most people, i envisioned 30 as old. when you're 20, 30 is ancient. i imagined i would be living an old life, doing old things, feeling and being old. but at 29, i wasn't old at all, whatever that means. i realized that chronological age can have very little to do with how you feel about yourself and your life. of course, it is flattering if someone thinks that you look younger than you actually are. but for me, so much of that is attitude, rather than appearance. most of the time i feel young. young without youth. isn't that what idlewild called it in american english? but then vh1 gotta come along and spoil it. get my crotchety cranky clampett side all up in arms. damn them.