TimWoolery.net Documenting the Journey and the Learning Curve

#72 – Things I’m Too Old For

#72 - Things I’m Too Old For

This being the year of our Lord 2005, it causes me to reflect a little at the milestones I’ve achieved. I’m not a spring chicken anymore. My 10 year reunion is coming up, something I laughed at when I saw John Cusack contemplate it in “Grosse Pointe Blank”. Now, I’m not laughing. It’s something that’s been building in my mind for a while. I did a Dose a while back about ways to tell that you’re growing up and when you’re no longer “a kid”. I guess this is just a continuation of that but I’m not really convinced I need yet another laundry list on this site.

I was walking through NewPark Mall on Wednesday. Nicole’s pounding the ground for a job and I was along as “moral support”. I drank a latte at 8PM (part of the crazy hedonism of vacation). The mall is just a different place for me than it used to be 10, 15 or even 20 years ago. It’s weird because I can remember when the mall was built, remember going to my first and only circus on the mall’s under-construction grounds (Wasn’t even Ringling Bros. – it was Circus Vargas…what ever happened to those guys?). Remember the cavernous interior with the alternating brown and white tiles and my introduction to the world of video games when I first started going to The Gold Mine (Lower level, entrance 5…right next to the pet shop).

I’m losing focus. Being at the mall and examining the shops there, I realize that I’ve fallen out of the very core demographic that this mall, or any other, is shooting for. I’m no longer the white male age 18-25 that I used to be. My disposable income is not in the 50% range, it’s actually somewhere around -5%. The stores, the clothes in those stores…it’s just not who I am anymore. I go to Hot Topic, but only to read the shirts. In the absence of a book store in the mall (Both Waldenbooks and B. Daltons disappeared quickly after the arrival of the first Barnes and Noble in our town) – this is one of the remaining sources of cheap entertainment I have left. That, and harassing the kid who works the Calendar kiosk.

So…to Hot Topic. See t-shirts that you previously only acquired at places like “Tried N True”, a head shop or from a concert t-shirt vendor. A repro of a Guns N’ Roses show at the Whiskey in 1982. It’s become so easy to pretend you were around for any of that…just need a handful of twenties, 10 minutes and you too can affect an intimate knowledge of rock culture! Took my broken little heart over to Spencers Gifts. I’m not ashamed to admit that in my time not a few of the things in my room came from Spencers. Used to be a cool place to go to – find stuff for your room that was weird and sometimes cheap and even more rarely weird and cheap.

And yet another one of the bastions of my teen years goes spiraling down the drain like a clump of hair. Spencers caters to a group of people who I don’t think I think I was even when I was young enough to be it. Posters featuring alternate pictures of pot, beer, lesbians and Al Capone. Sex board games. Something stirs in my consciousness… The fake pot raining beads curtain. The unsubtle and definitely unfunny sign that says “Blow Me”. Getting warmer… The fake beer can with alternating light. I’ve got it! This is a store for Frat Guys!

Yes, yes – children. When you’re looking for a poster that features kissing lesbians, filthy suggestive material and that lava lamp in a disturbingly phallic package – you need only make one stop. Why bother being subtle when you can come right and say it! Increases your appeal to the opposite sex by a factor of…well, we don’t really know but that’s why you read Cosmo! (Yes, I know this makes no sense, just work with me!)

From there, we go to American Eagle (or as my ever-mistyping hands just attempted to say, “American Egad”). We’re hanging an LCD panel in front of you with the camera feed to remind you that we’re watching your every step. But who cares! Step now into my parlor featuring overpriced silk-screens with ho-hum slogans. We’re just winging it nowadays since A&B freaked everyone out last year. Wear this corduroy jacket with faux-sheepskin collar. You’ll be so cool looking that you’ll somehow forget the time you saw a hobo wearing the exact same thing. And let’s go check out the jeans! Boot-cut, loose fit or the ever popular “worker” jean. Notice the underwear section – even when we’re selling undershirts, notice how the model is lifting his to show off his Y-fronts! It’s so subtle, you can’t notice (oh wait…you did).

I escaped the maelstrom and stood panting in the middle of the mall. How had it come to this? When had I become that which I most feared - a grown-up? Was it when I started to realize that clothes didn’t change who I was, or who they were? Was it when I realized that a brand name changed nothing about how I saw myself? Maybe the little minions that inhabit marketing took a look at me and wrote me off as a lost cause, I don’t know. Maybe it’s all that other Old Guy stuff that pops out of my mouth nowadays. Kids aren’t responsible. I can call people “knuckleheads” without making reference to The Three Stooges. I don’t drink Pabst Blue Ribbon, thanks for asking. I turn the heat down to save on the PG&E bill. My answering machine outgoing message is not hilarious.

Other indications keep making themselves known – I refuse to see a movie the first night it comes out. I will not see a movie, nor subject myself to a movie theatre, unless I: a) like the movie b) read at least three good reviews of it and c) can find someone to go with me. Actually, “c”’s optional. It has been for a long time. Either way – I’m finding that my goals appear to be keeping my life busy but simple. Find time to throw on my gym togs and ride my bike across the bike trestle to the gym. See some of my high school classmates and their families. Marvel at how fat they’ve become. Wonder how I’m doing – see some of the gym rats and the kids who’re 17 and look like you used to. Wish you could again and see that one guy…Rimaldi…he shaves everything on his body and chats girls up right and left. I'd get all het up about Rimaldi but something in me says that I'm getting too old for that kind of foolishness. Besides, his gym shorts scream "Gay and Loving It!" - amazing that the girls he tries to pick up don't notice.

- Tim Woolery, 01/12/2005