This is the inevitable thread for ILxors in their forties

Guessing “sheffed” is a corruption of “shivved” though as I type that it occurs to me that “sheffed” may be a reference to Sheffield steel and so maybe sheffed is the older form? Certainly I’ve been hearing / reading shivved for years but sheffed is new to me.

I can say with happy certainty that I’m further out of touch than Tracer is.

That was an xpost, couldn’t imagine anyone else was musing on this, should’ve known Ledge would be.

Shiv: “probably from Romani chiv ‘blade’.” Says the internet.

Cheffed: "British slang to describe someone getting [shanked] or [knifed]. Typically used by [roadmen]."

https://definedictionarymeaning.com/topic/99302/cheffed

i.e. getting chopped up by a knife

lol a Roadman sounds like a description of an Irish construction worker from the 60's working as one of McAlpine's Fusiliers to me, but apparently it means someone who hangs out (not to be confused with hanging out washing) on the streets and stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qTY0u6Cujw
zone 2 - who you cheffed?

lyrics here: https://l-hit.com/en/1611459

"how many times have i went for my waist and they ran even though mans lacking
Aim it back then i swear i gotta tap it
Could never be me that don't bang it
Ruth who you cheffed?
Ned who you cheffed? (ned who you cheffed?)
Loose who you cheffed?
Let me not even start about kev
Your-your big man doing up gang
Incog who have you cheffed?
All these guys just rap like you ain't made non of us bled
Give a fuck what you think
Wanted to stop when it got too ten
Let me just state some names before we say they ain't got any friends
Loose got chinged up three times
Lb hold a bass
Ned got knocked out two times
Rhino got it in his face (rhino got it in his face)
Tizzy got opened wide
Ayy, rampz he already went swimming
Os, ny, tiny got it all for free who wants the ticket
Tsplash with his auntie
Femz at a party
They don't score no parks g"

Ned's got some explaining to do

turned 41 recently, though i keep forgetting that i'm 41 because pandemic birthdays don't seem real. so far it's been...okay? without getting too personal, i'm coming out the other end from some existential am i going to have kids or not? stuff that i do think, for women who want to have kids, makes the 40s a different decade than for men (kind of the decade following a reckoning of sorts). (obviously, that is a generalization that pretends gender is more binary than it is.) i have been very lucky when it comes to death and disease among the people i love, and people itt who have experienced that kind of loss, i'm so sorry.

much more trivially, i find the stuff in the cultural ether about women in their 40s irritating--in my circle of female friends who live near me (all of whom are younger than me lol) there's a lot of Cathy cartoon-style bemoaning growing older, and maybe i'm just a case of arrested development, but i don't identify. i guess i'm in worse physical shape than i used to be, but duh. my late 30s and early 40s saw me become financially stable (as much as possible in this accursed economy) in a way that still feels like a bit of a trip (and was dependent on getting married, honestly, which is shitty), but i do think it's made life less stressful. on the other hand, political/global stuff is terrifying--i feel like my 40s so far have been characterized by a weird cognitive dissonance--a realization that i have become a part of the bourgeoisie, with bourgeois habits (i always had those, though, just less money), who nonetheless has been radicalized by how terribly entrenched wealth inequality and economic exploitation are in this country. i feel dread about how precarious basically everyone's life feels right now (except, like, three uber-rich people), but that doesn't seem like it's necessarily about being in my 40s, just about where the world is as i happen to be in my 40s.

also i feel like i was never particularly adventurous in my aspirations for my life, so the fact that i'm 41 and there's a pandemic, so i spend Friday nights reading in a comfortable chair is fine by me.

Question: does having kids give you a connection to the next generation and feeling younger or make you feel your age and out of touch?

Yes.

i feel like my 40s so far have been characterized by a weird cognitive dissonance--a realization that i have become a part of the bourgeoisie, with bourgeois habits (i always had those, though, just less money), who nonetheless has been radicalized by how terribly entrenched wealth inequality and economic exploitation are in this country

Ha, I feel you on this 10000%. Just giving modern life a moment's thought must push you leftward, unless you're a total fucking psychopath. And yet, I realize that I'm not really doing anything about it (except for the mitigation of environmental impact caused by not having kids vs. having them). Oh, well, at least I'm not a Bitcoin farmer, I tell myself...

I feel every bit of that, hs. More to say later at a computer.

hi horseshoe. that's a great post :)

unperson, i, too, am not doing enough about it.

io, i find what you wrote upthread about coming through your grief about the kids/partner thing and then deciding you were not willing to give yourself over to it later when it became an option very moving!

xp hi Tracer! thank you!

otm

bourgeois habits (i always had those, though, just less money)

lol and yes

booming post from horseshoe

(i am 35 so i'll see yall itt l8rz)

i love nothing more than to buy wine and snacks and physical books tbh--have been like that, except for the wine part, since i was 5 and filling out those Scholastic book orders in elementary school.

xp hi m bise!!! <3

Hi horseshoe we are the same age and I loved your post

hm it had never occurred to me to blame Scholastic for my love of physical media but you may be right

fgti, that is an immense compliment coming from you, ty!

I chime with as much of that post as could reasonably be expected horseshoe, nailed a few things there

I'm in no rush to don a flat cap, wear tweed and have a long beard like people twenty years younger than me, put it that way.

― Mark G, Monday, 22 February 2021 13:27 (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Or older, tbf

Calz- navvies/tarries

hm it had never occurred to me to blame Scholastic for my love of physical media but you may be right

― rob, Monday, February 22, 2021 8:36 AM (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yes, this is a revelation, the thrilling sensation of New! Books! is precisely the same all these decades later

Am 41 as well* and thank you for your post Horseshoe.

(technically I'm still and will remain 40 for a while, because just like you the rona birthdays don't really seem to count, and my second birthday-that-can't-be-celebrated is already coming up! not that I mind too much: I've my gf, and wine and books will def do <3)

there is something about "Roadman" that tickles me in a similar way that "Wheelman" as used in the world of James Ellroy style crime-fiction does! Sorry I know this doesn't make much sense and apologies for the whiff of male chauvinism.

I'm in my late 40s. I have three kids, one just turned 18 & another will turn 21 in a few months. I guess I'm the dreaded patriarch. Thanks Tracer Hand for helping me see why my son says "cap" all the time (Paris not London but he has some British friends).

It's strange moving toward the other side of the parenting thing, although I hope it's a long time still: my kids & wife are by a million miles the people I most love being with. The pandemic's been good in that way: hour-long lunches & two hour long dinners every day where we just talk & laugh together about everything: it's a dinner party every day, with the most fun & sympathetic people I can imagine.

But getting older's meant more death: my thesis director, to whom I was closer than to my own father, died just before the pandemic; another person who I'd admired for a long time & had been finally able to spend time with, died of Covid; two other people I'd clashed with for decades but were important parts of my life at various points, died in the last year. These are all boomers, in their 60s and 70s. A high school friend was killed by the cops last year, dying unmonitored in jail of the DTs. Death everywhere. My parents are still alive & I haven't seen them in almost three years, because I live across the sea & they don't want to travel anymore, & we don't have the money for us to go to see them. & with the rona who knows if we'll ever even be able to make it back there before they're gone.

many of my female friends in their late forties/early fifties bemoan their invisibility

For sure! But being visible as a woman isn’t necessarily great, either, vis a vis in orbit’s comments upthread about street harassment. Visibility is at best fraught, I think. Invisibility isn’t good, but can be a perverse relief. To be seen without being objectified would be ideal.

When I was young enough to be uncomfortably visible in public, I was still invisible/inaudible in grad seminars, for example.

When I was young enough to be uncomfortably visible in public, I was still invisible/inaudible in grad seminars, for example.

Yeah, that's the fun thing about sexism! It never works for you, only against you.

I'm sure it's partly being in the longest/only long-term relationship of my life but I'm fine with being invisible in an "acknowledgement of sexuality" sense. To some extent I've comfortably forgotten the presh to be feminine and attractive in circumscribed ways or to care if men find me so. (Lockdown in sweatpants has helped.) The last man who tried to "flirt" with me was unbearably awful and I would like to never care about attracting dating partners again, tyvm.

I'm very happy that my circles of female friends are expressly rejecting worrying about aging. I can't think of anyone who moans about wrinkles or aging, apart from a reasonable amt of effort to be kind to ourselves. And a of them are single and planning for a single life, which is also interesting.

Re financial security: It sucks that so many of us had to get into our 40s to not live in fear of catastrophe, hunger, losing access to housing, being unsafe. Everyone likes nice things! I don't want people to blame themselves for enjoying NOT being on the precipice! As always, it turns out the problem was capitalism all along.

tbf in my own case, I had help from family while i struggled to make a living wage, which obvs most don’t have. that only makes the ridiculous difficulty for most people more stark.

Meant to say "...many of them are single and planning for a single life"...not ALL, obviously!

Sorry to keep coming back, my morning has been a little fragmented.

I know that illness & death are coming for me and the people I love but it hasn't happened yet, for the most part. I'm sure my late 40s will look different. My parents are, seemingly suddenly, "old," and my dad's getting open-heart surgery soon, so every day is uncertain.

Re personal ambitions: I would like to own a home that I can potentially age in, in this decade. Other than that I just want to Do More and Be More Effective at righting wrongs and helping ppl in various ways, and to get the chance to use my skills and enjoy my work. It's too bad I have to worry about getting paid for it, honestly.

PBKR, to answer your question from earlier today: both.

I’m 44.

I'm very much in the unperson/horseshoe sphere, honestly. I'll be turning 50 in eight days, and while this wasn't how I expected to end my 40s, I'm alive and well, happily employed at a place that doesn't rely on sales or profit margins and where I've been able to easily work from home the whole time (and which recently gave me the most glowing performance review I've ever received), comfortably housed and only possessing a few twinges and things along those lines in terms of health -- my daily morning walks have been excellent ways to maintain things as well as my mood this past year. My parents are very well (and now vaccinated), my sister and only sibling is doing fine and my circle of people close to me is getting through it all, which is a relief, though I've no doubt people have their own individual struggles. I have lost a couple of very dear people over the years but for other causes than COVID. The wider world is a wreck and a half and seflish and evil grotesques are the worst, and are manifold, but I hope I see that clear-eyed enough and help at righting balances as I can. Meanwhile, my choices years back, conscious or not, on several levels -- not to bother with a car, never to register for any specific political party, accept fatherhood/stepfatherhood if it occurred but not seeking it out -- seem to have played out comfortably enough.

41, and my forties have been absolute adulthood peak times for good mental health and loving family, and an absolute low point in self-worth, professional accomplishment and income.

Other than that I just want to Do More and Be More Effective at righting wrongs and helping ppl in various ways, and to get the chance to use my skills and enjoy my work. It's too bad I have to worry about getting paid for it, honestly.

This is beautiful, thanks!!

To be seen without being objectified would be ideal.

Having kids has shaped my life in a good way, imo

Like, when my daughter was born, every trivial stupid selfish impulse I had suddenly slid to the bottom of my priority list. Hell, _I_ slid to number 57 on my priority list, and I feel like that helped me become myself in a new and better way.

That's me, though - no judgment of how other people structure their lives intended or implied

Something I’ve experienced increasingly in middle age: a lack of need to engage in modern popular culture. Hyped things have never been magnified for me generally but more and more hyper things are demagnetized. For instance, in 2020, I think saw like two 2020 movies. Maybe I’ll catch up by 2025, or maybe not.

This also goes for other media as well. I’ll get there when the spirit moves me.

Something I’ve experienced increasingly in middle age: a lack of need to engage in modern popular culture.

ooooh good one! same here

Yeah, absolute same. I know there's an element of "my changing job" and an element of "I'm getting older," but I really attribute a lot of it to how much I used to love "the discourse" and how it's basically turned into the serving bowl from Salo

It's the simile we've all been thinking tbh

The fact that we dedicated like three days to "indie rock woman smashing a guitar makes single Twitter rando angry" is like a good sign that maybe pop culture is stupid and talking about it is for absolute idiots

otoh my brain is now filled with a lot of detailed info about "boring adult" shit ... 10 years ago I could write paragraphs detailing the different categories of hipsters and their attributes and how that relates to Bourdieu's theories of cultural capital but also taking into account the Birmingham School and Stuart Hall's writings ... and now ... I have to google Bourdieu to make sure I spelled it correctly, but I can go on at length about the ramifications of not properly capitalizing and categorizing building repairs as improvements and the potential problems the Rental Assistance Program might have in re documentation and eligibility calculations ... but tbh, I kinda think I'm still cool?

in another decade, will there be an ilx thread: Old Man Yells At Cloud Computing: A Thread for ILXors in their 70s?

Plus no one can stop talking about TV shows

https://i.imgur.com/RQLedlZ.jpg

hey man, good for you if you're tired of pop culture; it sounds fun!
dunno if that correlates so much with age though. clearly doesn't as of yet for me!

in another decade, will there be an ilx thread: Old Man Yells At Cloud Computing: A Thread for ILXors in their 70s?

I like "Can a I Get a Clapper on this Alexa?"

hmm wonder why ILX is watching so much tv right now, instead of going out to concerst and stuff

this is fucking funny content commentary btw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4SMSCKOXO8