Rejection/Routine - Living in the shadow of 40, part 2

Following on from my recent and depression inducing sad indictment of life farting and wheezing its way towards 40, I have been analyzing, potentially more so that I should, my life, and trying to really feel and acknowledge those things that make middle aged men fade out into insignificance to young people, an analysis that goes beyond just the wrinkling behaggarment and copious amounts of time staring at younger girls and people doing cool stuff. This is in no means a way of trying to find a way to avoid said disenfranchisement and isolation from the youth, quite the opposite, I want to enjoy it, every new creak, every new noise and fucking insipid little whine at the state of the world, and the synchronized raising and lowering of quality of life as I cruise nicely towards a shattering and most likely lonely death, probably by something stupid judging by my near misses so far, run over by the largest car in production at the time, nearly choked to death trying to eat a swiss roll as a dare in college, and almost killed by an electric shower that was hung up using a single nail, it exploded. The reason I say raising and lowering of life quality is simple, its raised by the fact that I do have a bit more money to do stuff with, I can have a holiday without shoving the lot on a credit card and worrying about paying for it all many years later (but cheers MBNA..). I can go out and buy a big TV and then sit and curse the amount of controls and hark back to the days of simple things, like Video+ and Philips DCC cassettes. But then at the very same time, the lowering is just the general fading into the background, while younger, better healthier shinier people take their decade or so in the limelight, drinking all the drinks, chatting all the girls up, getting all the STi's and pumping their unwanted offspring up various holes, waking up and slapping their wrinkle free foreheads in short lived regret. Also, having a child makes you feel the slow rejection from main stream life also, as you slowly drift from being in their eyes, a 9ft tall warrior, story teller, dragon slayer, killer of kings, creator of feasts, and adventurer to magical places (zoo’s and shit) , to just farty doughy and embarrassing dad, whose entire existence is greeted with a spotty tut and headshake of disapproval, and usually some unintelligible new age street slang or ting? The rejection started a long time ago for me. My trainers were no longer being stared at and analyzed to see if they were cool enough by "yoots". In fact, the last comment I had on my clothes was about 5 years ago, while on the Woolwich ferry when a young cool lad asked me where I got my jacket from, and then didn’t call me a tramp when I said it was from a charity shop, nor did he mug me with a knife, nor in the zenith of this scenario did he act out some bizarre fetish of arse raping a man older than he, (all of which were on the back of my mind at the time). Since then, I have just blended in to the background, I've never been a fashionable person, mostly because I don’t like the sheep attitude of it, but mainly because my awkward shape excluded me from most of the stuff deemed fashionable, anyone who knows me, knows I generally look like a lumberjack who was not only laid off from his job, but suffered a close berevement, grew a bigger beard and started a new life as a Chris De Burgh tribute act (without shaving). I grow fearful and usually decline when anyone I know goes "out out", I draw the line at dancing, I will dance, very badly, but only if I am shit faced, the sober thought of me lolling my tripe filled husk around in various directions to bleepy music that I don’t know, from uber trendy DJ's such as "DJ D8 r8p" and looking like a pig being machine gunned fills me with dread. I'd much rather be in a pub, with people around my age, talking bollocks and drinking warm and overly expensive real ale and making brash but age sensitive comments about girls in the pub, such as "cor, I wouldn’t mind sticking my wotsit up her thing-a-me-jig and then spraying my you know what over her doo dahs".. The rejection does go upwards also, for instance in the way I sometimes see old people (the venom of this usually peaks when I am trying to get somewhere, shopping at the weekends is a good example). Staring at them while they shuffle along, slowing pigeon stepping and sliding their feet after a token lunge of their zimmer frame, soulless decades of anger etched into their parchment faces just going about their usual routine (routine is an important word here, we lead onto that shortly, it would follow on seamlessly but I am not a professional writer, so it will jolt in un-expectantly like a drunken partner coming back from the pub and expecting a blow job..). "What’s the point of you?" I think, while the old fart robs me of a few seconds of my day while I try and navigate around them, "Just how much f*cking time do you need on earth you selfish old bundle of bones rags and piss". "Oh for f*ck sake, why can’t you shop in the week, in the day time, you Saga magazine receiving old fart?" "why are there SO many bus stops, its for you isn’t it, you aged old bingo playing shit hill" Are all just some of the things that whizz through my mind while I scowl, tut and generally becunt my forbearers. Don’t get me wrong, I love old people, but I'm sure that most of the people reading this can’t say they haven’t thought similar thoughts while trying to race to Argos, or similar? No? You fucking liar. The above level of hatred is only what’s visited on us at, or approaching middle age. The looks at festivals or concerts, "Oh fuck me, look at the older man at the gig, tut" "Why are YOU here (watching this band that came out before I was even a teenager and although its probably more relevant you being here than me I’m still going to stare because you are older and shit and this is a gig and you should be at home doing something shit like reading, or putting some sort of collecting in order?)" "Why are you chatting to that younger girl, as if she would be interested in you?" "Why are you in THIS shop, the clothes in here have different colours and stop at waist size 34, and there is no xl?" and "What are you starting at my young pert bits and bobs for THIS long?" are just some of the unreasonable intergenerational examples of passed up hatred. It’s a shame that we can’t just stare with abandon and not be made to feel like an utter pervert? In my own research I find that there is also a level of self-exclusion from mainstream life. The thing that does this to us like nothing else is settling into a "routine". As you get older you start to get comfortable with certain things, you know this when you try and arrange a quick beer with mates of similar age, only to find that this can only be "penciled in" for 3 weeks later as they all have a lot on. They don’t, they are just finding it increasingly hard to shake themselves out of their own routine. I can’t Tuesday, its chicken kiev peas and night". The routine is so indoctrinated that nights have names. The other reason why a quick beer is no longer met with an enthusiastic smack of the lips, but instead a sharp intake of breathe, is because beer now has consequences, "Psssss, its a School night.." You have to entice them out with silly primary school things, like come, just a quick "naughty" or "cheeky" one. Making that phone call to try and get a "permission slip" from the dull missus, who you probably would have just gone home sat awkwardly with, and eventually watched her fall asleep (at the same old time) while trying to think of other ways to sort out the sack full of surprisingly still enthusiastic semen, and release them from their fleshy prison papoose. Unlike most of my writing, which ends on a bleak note, suggesting suicide, or enthusing for a nuclear holocaust, this blog has hope. Read on…. Routine is a train spotter, a stamp collector, and probably wet the bed and lived with its mum until it was 38, that you have let into your lives, and given sole access to the calendar to. Routine is a long highway to death, the admission that you will do these set things until you die, an acknowledgement that your "life", life being a collection of experiences, is now over, the slow winding down of something that was once amazing. You don’t have to accept it, you need to threaten to shop routine to the police for those questionable pictures it has one its hard drive, they will soon scamper off and let excitement back in. No, you don’t have to be a complete cock, trying to force the years back and getting your receding hair dreadlocked and going to Bestival and trying to f*ck an Emo girl up against a tree while high on MDMA, just let a little bit of excitement into your life, go for that beer, go somewhere new on holiday, get the house to yourself and sit in that wardrobe and try one of those strangle wanks everyone goes on about, just make sure you get the order right, wank first strangle after, or something. Another way to beat routine is surprise, surprize the missus, cook her a nice meal, them suddenly jump up and shove your cock in her gravy and scream like a banshee, rip your practical shirt off and scream you are going to burn all your utility clothing, take her, she will be wetter than drowned otter cubs. Surprise yourself, go out for a chat with your boss, talk about that promotion, inbetween words, punch yourself in the face, scream like a banshee, shove your erect cock in their coffee and put another layer of utility clothes on. Go to a meeting, try and pick a biscuit up with your arse cheeks. Open an office door, fart inside, shout “west coast” and run off. Do it, fuck routine. Wear butter to work, it’s a layer? Don’t fade out into the night. Part 3 to follow, I’ll have lost my job and my woman and will probably be round the back of Kings Cross station giving hand jobs to business men..