What fuddy duddy?

I had a friend tell me the other day that she was making it her mission to young me up, whatever that means. She said I act too old, and she's going to fix that.  "But I like being old," I told her. "Oh, you can keep being mature and adult. We'll just get rid of the fuddy duddy part."  Wait, what?
What fuddy duddy part? My cardigan sweater with the tissues in the pocket?  My gray hair*?  My cups of hot chamomile tea and 10:00 bedtime?  Maybe there's more, some horrifically geriatric aspect of my personality that I'm not aware of. But if not then I have to ask, why are we getting rid of my fuddy duddy part? I like my fuddy duddy part.  And I appreciate the thought, but I don't want my twenties back. I don't like loud clubs with flashing lights, I don't like late nights, and I don't like uncomfortable and attractive clothing.  I cringe every time I hear some fashion industry person complain about sweatpants and how Americans are getting slovenly picking comfort over looks.  Why not pick comfort? Why MUST fashion be uncomfortable? 
I suppose I'm supposed to dread aging, and fear being old, but I don't.  For one thing, If I'm destined to die at 80 I still have another 45 years left, even if I act 80 now.  Being a fuddy duddy doesn't bring me any closer to death than acting 20 would.  But also, every time I go to a funeral for someone who died in his teens, or twenties, or even thirties, I think about how sad it is that they didn't get to be old. Old is a prize, a goal, something you should want to achieve.  Quite literally, it beats the alternative.



* I was asked recently why I mention my hair so much and I realized that I'm embarrassed by it. Not by the gray, but by the fact that it's half red, half gray. I can't wait for it to grow out long enough to cut off the dye and be done with it, but until then I'm embarrassed by my tri-color head.

I used to be young, but I'm too old to remember it any more

I am 34 years old. I am not old, or elderly, or geriatric, but I am aging. In a year, if I were to get pregnant, I would be classified as being "of advanced maternal age", which means there would be an increased risk of birth defects due to old eggs. My hair is turning silver (and it looks so good, I figure I'm about a year away from cutting the colored length off), I find myself holding papers away to read them, and my shoulders are sloping to the point where my bra strap keeps slipping off and I'm shopping around for tiny calcium supplements. And that little line between my eyebrows that comes from furrowing my brow at stupid people is now about as deep as a bullet hole.

When I was young I was so stupid. Seriously, I can look back on just about any moment of my life and feel embarrassed for myself. But I was young, and thin, and carefree. I wish I'd realized it. I wish I'd worn bikinis, and taken compliments better. I wish I'd enjoyed it before it was gone. Self-esteem should exist in the present tense and not just in hind sight.

stop bein stoopid, dumazzez

I hate wen I read fb posts an dey r spelt lyk dis. Makes me wanna scream 2 hav 2 read out loud jus 2 unerstan wat dey r sayin.

(I hate when I read facebook posts and they are spelled like this. Makes me want to scream to have to read out loud just to understand what they are saying.) And I think I finally have figured out why.

I read 1984 in 1994, during my senior year in high school. I'm sure I have forgotten some very important and symbol-laden parts. I remember that the guy's job was to re-write things in New-speak so as to help further the goal of shrinking the language so as to shrink thought. And also that the cigarettes all seemed to fall apart. But basically, the language thing. The theory (which I believe works to an extent) is that if people can't put their thoughts and vague concepts into words, they will eventually be unable to harbor those thoughts and vague concepts. If your only negative word is "bad", you can't really be incensed, or aggravated, or revolted, or disgusted. You can only think something is bad.

I think that the dumbing down of American youth's language, the text speak and the shrinking and condensing of thoughts into facebook status and twitter sized blips, is dumbing down America's youth. I think that when we eliminate detail and nuance in order to get entire conversations down to 140 characters, we lose our ability to appreciate detail and nuance. I believe that when we cannot spell responsibility or intelligence that we just don't use the words, and slowly the concepts evaporate as well. Not today, but check on it in a few generations. Will responsibility be the next fortnight? Will it be an antiquated term most teens can't define?

When we tolerate rampant misspellings (And why text speak now anyway? Everyone has a qwerty keyboard on their phone now!) and abbreviations, we tolerate ignorance. And when we tolerate something, we accept it and grow accustomed to it and it becomes a viable option. I don't want my daughter to grow up thinking that the incorrect is just as good as the correct, that dotter is a viable way to spell daughter, that she can learn to spell it tomarrow or tomorrow. I want her to know that intelligence is good, is better than ignorance, and that willful ignorance is the worst.