A sequitur about my age

A customer walked through my door recently and suggested that I was only 20. Now, before you fixate on the fact that I found this important enough to mention on my blog, let me assure you that there is an ungratifying point to it. When Mr. Charming accused me of being almost half my age, I had one of those brief moments in time when I thought, "WOW. This guy's drunk before noon. BUT. Maybe completely sober, he'd have accused me of being a respectable 29 instead. Yes, I think I'll just interpret his 20 to mean 29!"

Which I think is OKAY because when I don't have drunk people walking through my door, I am ALMOST always grounded in the knowledge that I am 35. I actually have no choice seeing as how my body refuses to let me forget.

For example, I try sleeping in on Saturday mornings, but my 35-year-old body has become rooster-like in that it insists on springing to life at 5:30 am... just like I remember my elderly mother's 35-year-old body doing when I was a kid.

ALSO. My 35-year-old body recently thought it might be funny to grow a gray hair somewhere that is not... I repeat NOT... on my head.

And then there's the fact that my 35-year-old brain thinks teenagers and pop stars shouldn't be driving. That dress codes are a good thing. That coffee tables and dental visits are absolutely necessary. And that 90 is the new middle age.

Here is where I suddenly change subjects on you and then eventually try to neatly tie everything all together in the end.

I've mentioned before that I LOVED The Lovely Bones. Everything from Susie Salmon's heaven to Ray Singh's chapped lips. It was haunting and unsentimental and had perfect pacing, and I promise I'm not getting paid to say this. So I have been following the story about how it's becoming a movie. I'm intrigued because I would have said it was impossible to adapt this particular novel into film, even though I was guilty of playing it out in my head like a movie as I was reading it the last 500 times. My mind had all the characters cast: Michelle Pfeiffer would be Mrs. Salmon. I could see Bob Saget as Mr. Salmon. And Grandma Lynn as that lady from The Facts of Life. Not Mrs. Garrett, but her sister, Beverly Ann....

So imagine my surprise when I read that Susan Sarandon was going to play Grandma Lynn. Really?? She's GRANDMA age? And they've got Mark Wahlberg playing Mr. Salmon, only just recently replacing that mere boychild Ryan Gosling. RACHEL WEISZ was cast as Mrs. Salmon. RACHEL WEISZ is my age. And... omigod... So is Mark Wahlberg. That's when it hit me. They are MY age. They are... hmm... old enough to be a twelve-year-old's parents.

Therefore, I was mistaken. While I consciously call myself 35 every day. I SUBCONSCIOUSLY read novels like someone who needs a fake ID.... and, incidentally, also happens to be stuck somewhere in 1987.