This is the inevitable thread for ILxors in their forties

In my 30s I'd say stuff like "I prefer darker roasted coffee" but now I say "At my age, I prefer darker roasted coffee." This is a good trick for seeming wise.

now I wonder, "How in the world can my kids not know who Bruce Springsteen is?"

Listening to Bruce always struck me as highly optional. But at least I know who he is. By the same token, as a kid I knew, for example, who Jimmy Durante was, even though his career had basically ended before I was born.

your mom sounds super cool omar

Generally speaking, most people are best at appreciating and evaluating cultural products produced when they were aged 15-20.
maybe. but i feel confident saying that generally speaking, i am not most people :)

it's always "find a sandwich"!

your dad has got it together

When I was 15 I got super-offended when my aunt said I couldn't possibly understand the lyrics to "Purple Rain." Now I hear some contemporary music and am like "WTF are they singing?" :(

pretty much all specific bits of culture are highly optional.

I grew up with a sense that there was Essential Culture, but lost it quickly. When I got married, my parents were a little surprised that my wife hadn't been made to sit through all of "our" canonical movies. Nowadays we occasionally try to tell the children about Elvis Costello or the Go-Gos or Animaniacs. If they yawn and roll their eyes, we just drop it. Life's too short. They'll find what they need to find.

the only answer if you fear top baldness is to go - FULL mullet - so top is hairless, sides are partying. Like Ben Stahl

or john weathers from gentle giant

Essential reference for "top is hairless, sides are partying": Larry Fein
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/58/Larry_Fine_in_a_promotional_image_from_1962.png/220px-Larry_Fine_in_a_promotional_image_from_1962.png

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFZTmglPKag

We are apparently newly and differently fecund at this age.

Our forties might be "the decline of fecundity and the beginning of something else: a fecundity of the imagination, an era when we become not creative, but creation." My latest, for @onbeing. https://t.co/qLkUkUxNwU

— Kaya Oakes (@kayaoakes) January 5, 2018

whole lotta things "might be" true

so . . . wanna see my fecundity?

whole lotta things "might be" true

I couldn't get past the fecund line tbh. You don't need to be in your 40's to eschew that type of Richard and Judy show level bullshit psychobabble, and know confidently know that your not fucking missing out on anything of use.

sorry i blew all my fecundity 20 years back

fecund sounds too fecal to me and I dont like the word :<

In re keeping up with stuff, I think it’s a sort of misleading concept. When you’re younger it’s easier to be aware of some strains of pop culture because your friends and social circles are likewise tuned in and you’re more likely to just kind of absorb things by osmosis. otoh you’re likely to be aware of a relatively narrow band of stuff just because it takes a while to discover everything that’s out there in the world. In my 40s I’m definitely less cognizant of youth culture than when I was in my teens or 20s, but I’m more aware of at least some stuff across a much broader range.

Honestly, On Being usually makes me want to throw eggs at the radio. I can't stand that show.

I used to wonder "How can my grandmother not know who Bruce Springsteen is?"

My grandpa tried name-dropping him in a dinner table conversation once, but unfortunately he called him Bruce Springlestein by mistake

Shaving your head down is *almost* like hiding it but it's also saying fuck it, this is who I am.

this is massively massively otm. when i decided to shave it all off it was a single-fingered “fuck you” to my deviant cocking hairline. in general, balding people who clean-shave (imo) are people who take full control of unwanted bullshit.

Shaving my head worked well when I was living in a tropical country, but in the UK it just exasperates the "it's cold and there are no hats that I can now acceptably wear" problem.

I really don't get why "hiding" that you are bald by shaving is a problem for some people. Not on this thread, but I have actually seen people say that it's somehow cheating or deception.

The wonderbra of haircuts

XP Because people are massively, inexplicably keen to judge other people for everything they are and everything they do?

and who they do it for..

Taking back control - the bald by choice movement.

TBF, it's not really 'hiding' anyway, inasmuch as the perimeter of the stubble still clearly telegraphs your hairline.

I'd actually been clipping my hair down to nothing for several years before I started losing it, which made the adjustment to the haircut I'd have for the rest of my life relatively smooth.

No pun intended!

Taking back control - the bald by choice movement.

― Luna Schlosser

as opposed to the InBald movement, come join our popular reddit

I used to wonder "How can my grandmother not know who Bruce Springsteen is?"

My grandpa tried name-dropping him in a dinner table conversation once, but unfortunately he called him Bruce Springlestein by mistake

― faust apes (NickB)

quick, somebody come up with a humorous mispronunciation of "brockhampton"

seriously this is the real '40s shit, i don't mind groaning every time i move (my wife insists it's performative, which it isn't, but there's no actual pain attached), but knowing that my brain function is degenerating is tough. i know more now than i did ten years ago and i'm learning more stuff all the time, but frequently i can't remember words, basic simple words like "shoe", and my typing has gotten a lot worse grammatically. i make stupid errors that i used to make fun of people for, like two/too/to and typing "grammer" instead of "grammar" and i have no idea why. and then i start leaving out connecting words so that when i write stuff it winds up not making sense (on top of the frequent logical incoherence, which isn't a new thing for me, i've always had that).

i decided long ago that alzheimer's is the one acceptable reason for me to kill myself, so i worry a lot about this stuff.

They say the memory is the first thing to go. I forget what the second thing is.

It's the memory.

Thanks. Dadjoking aside, I need words and language to eat (as I have no other job skills). Losing my grip on them would be a serious problem. It may be silly to believe in this, but I do hope that things like word games, crosswords, and Scrabble will help keep my wits about me.

xp Bruckprampton

Brocklepimpton

Throckmorton

Boringstreetrapton

i don't mind groaning every time i move (my wife insists it's performative, which it isn't, but there's no actual pain attached)

i was just thinking to myself about this this morning! It's much more prevalent than it was even a year ago.there may be a performative element but i do it when I'm by myself too so...

New maddening pain in left hip this week, firs-ever complaint related to that area for me (though unlucky in right arm, i've been lucky re: back neck and hips before now).

OK no more bitching about hair loss or aches and pains for now damn guys.

i feel great :D :D :D

that's more like it!

I'll say that I don't feel any worse than I did in my thirties. But I'm only like three months into this thing so let's just wait and see what happens.

i feel pretty good imo

I feel pretty good, considering

http://cdn.ebaumsworld.com/mediaFiles/picture/73250/83371800.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuG2uAWVlP4
this makes me irrationally angry but that is dead proof i am old i guess

from The Times today:

Analysis: Prince is taking back control

Who would have predicted that a member of the royal family would take grooming tips from Jason Statham, Ross Kemp and the UK’s community of nightclub doormen? Yet the Duke of Cambridge has, without warning, joined their chilly-scalped gang (writes Hattie Crisell).

It probably feels like a seismic change to Prince William, but visually it’s not dramatic, truth be told: in recent years, the close and ever-diminishing style he sported was more of a nod to the idea of hair, a dream of a memory of hair, rather than anything substantial enough to be considered hair itself. Now Prince William has taken back control, with a shaven head that makes baldness into a decisive choice, not an ongoing source of hilarity for his wife and brother.

And thank heavens he has. He looks better, more modern and younger with it; it’s a style fit for the kind of future king who gives warm interviews to Ant and Dec, and speaks out on matters that previous generations of monarchy might have avoided, such as mental health. The fact is, the majority of men with thinning hair would be better off biting the bullet so bravely.

it’s a style fit for the kind of future king who gives warm interviews to Ant and Dec

rummages in the kitchen for guillotine wax