GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #240: A MIRROR BRIGHTLY

Not too long ago I went to the Country House with a dear friend of mine. In case you don't know me very well, the Country House in Clarendon Hills is home to the greatest cheeseburger known to humanity. If you love cheeseburgers, then you need to go there immediately. I don't care if you're currently in Siberia. Make the pilgrimage. You'll love it.


At the end of our meal I went to the bathroom, mostly because I eat like a slob and needed to clean my fingers off. I happened to look up into the mirror, and I was kind of surprised by the face I saw. The lights in the bathroom are very bright, so I could see every wrinkle and gray hair on my head. I looked fucking old. That's the first time I noticed that. I've made comments about gray hair in my beard this year, but this is the first time I saw that I was no longer 19 years old.


There is one annoying gray hair near the top of my head. It pisses me off because every time I see it I think I've got something stuck in my hair. But the others? I don't mind them so much. From what I can tell, aside from that one irritating hair, I'm going to go gray like old-time Nick Fury. That suits me fine.


I'm OK with getting old, but not too old. That's a topic for another day. Maybe for my 40th birthday I'll write a piece on that. Which, by the way, isn't too far off. In 2017 I will be 39.


Only a handful of people I know will recognize that as familiar. I'll probably get deeper into it someday. But for now . . . goodnight, fuckers.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #82: GETTING OLD

I'm thirty-six years old now, and I'm doing much better than I thought I would when I was younger, at least when it comes to appearance. I'm sure younger me would not appreciate the pounds I've put on since then, but younger me also thought I'd be bald and toothless by now. (I've always had bad teeth, and my grandfather went bald by the time he was in his early twenties, so I figured that would happen to me, too.)


I only lost the one tooth, which is an implant now. And my hair is just as thick as it was back then. I might have the 'Beetus and a bunch of other health problems, but at least I look fairly decent, and I carry my fat pretty well. Back when I weighed 306 lbs., no one would believe me when I told them that's what I weighed. So I've got a good frame for that.


All in all, not bad for a guy who thought he was going to be dead of a heart attack by 40. I won't get ahead of myself, though. An early death is still in the cards (thanks a lot, pancreas), although as I get closer to 40, the idea is no longer quite as appetizing as it once was. Plus, I have a lot more to live for now, considering how my writing career is finally starting to get some attention.


A while ago, I discovered a couple of gray chest hairs. Then, I found a gray hair on each of my sideburns. Now, my right sideburn is rapidly going gray. So I can only assume when I grow my beard for the winter, it might not be as dark as it usually is. I'm OK with that, because it looks like my hair is going to go gray in a very cool Nick Fury-ish kind of way. It worked very well for Bruce Campbell on BURN NOTICE. So yeah, I should be good on that front.


But . . . the middle finger of my left hand has been killing me the past couple of days. It makes typing very difficult, although aspirin seems to help for a short while. I feel the pain deep down in the bone and at the joints. I'm starting to wonder if I might have a touch of arthritis developing there. I guess it would serve me right, since I've been cracking my knuckles since I was in elementary school. It's kind of funny. Every time I did that, Mom would yell at me that I would get arthritis if I kept that up. It's even funnier because I developed this bad habit after watching her do it several times a day.


Well, hopefully I'm just being paranoid. If I'm not, well, thankfully it's on my left hand. I'm right-handed, and that one's doing fine.


Getting old sucks. Maybe LOGAN'S RUN had it right.