10 Years Since Highschool: A Religious Parable

A weird, unsettling creepiness comes over me when I realize that it was a solid 10 years ago that I graduated from high school.

10 years: Enough time for a child to be born and develop a highly distasteful interest in Miley Cyrus. Enough time for a group of nomadic midgets to reach the summit of the Matterhorn, using only gerbils for warmth and company over the long, endless nights.

At some point, staring at 17 year old girls went from "checking them out" to "a cause to call child protection services"

And what about those fancy pants dreams? Sure, all those amazing things you knew you were going to accomplish by 25 seemed plausible in 1998, but now they are a far-off reverie; a post-modern fairy tale, as it were.

Something remotely close to a spec of a tangent of something you want to do seems good enough.

Those friends that haven't at least compromised? Daddy's getting pretty sick of writing the rent check every month.

So the truth? You're always going to be playing catch up with time; it's always going to be a few steps ahead of you. As you age, time moves at an exponentially faster rate, so you're going to fall exponentially further behind.

Is there anyway to catch up? Probably not. You've got shit that will help you pass the time, like primetime TV or a sex worker who's dead inside, but no way to slow it down.

I do have a theory on something that might help. Have you noticed that if you're having fun (going out to dinner, having a good conversation), time fucking flies past, but when you're not (going to the gym, waiting on line at the DMV) it moves super slowly...

Well, maybe the key to life is to not enjoy yourself. Do mundane, vacuous things that cause you to recoil in pain at the slightest thought of doing them. Talk to an ill-informed moron, go to see a "mothers bring your kids in free!" matinée movie, write a buddy comedy for Owen Wilson and Shaquille O'Neal.

If you do that, I guarantee you life will seem endless.

Until you age to the point where death is looking at you while tapping his watch.

Although I guess that's where booze comes in.

This week I was in a retiree community known as "Florida" visiting my father. I haven't seen so many people drunk off their ass since I went to my Irish ex-girlfriend's family reunion/whiskey drinking contest.

I thought getting uncontrollably drunk becomes socially unacceptable at some point in your late-20s, but this appears to not be the case...I guess it's totally cool to get drunk all the time until you die.

At least it makes life a little more bearable. Hell, if I was 77 and living it up in Florida, I might take up a heroin habit.

I guess my main point is; live in the moment, don't live in the moment, time is precious, time doesn't matter. Whatever, it makes no difference, you should just be happy you're however old you are at this very moment, because it only gets worse from here.

Speaking of high school...is it just me or does the poster for the latest "hilarious body swap comedy" 17 Again (cunningly not 18 Again):


Look suspiciously like the cover of David Bowie's 2003 album Reality?