From December 28, 1988. Had a birthday just a few days earlier. Didn’t know shit about getting old.
Much more knowledgeable today.
I hope I die before I get old. I don't want to change who I am really. And to live until I was forty, I'd have to change the person I am. I'd rather be dead. Who said that? If you guessed Peter Pan, you're wrong. A street kid named Frenchie said that. Read this quote in the daily paper, so it must be true. Not that it is anybody's business but I turned forty-two (42) Saturday. To Frenchie, forty-two sounds aged, perhaps even deceased. That's two-hundred-and-ninety-four (294) in dog years. No bones about it. Frenchie is twenty years old. 20. Two-Oh. I have a tan corduroy sport coat with leather patches on the elbows older than that. It still looks nice. Hell, I still look nice. Parts of me are practically unused. Understand I'm getting older, and it truly doesn't seem so bad. It's like being your own science fair project. For instance, I just noticed grey nose hairs. And I've considered the alternative to aging. Don't care how much money Elvis and Mama Cass are still getting. More interested, how much money they're spending. I think Frenchie is missing the point here. Youth is flexibility and any street kid - urban survivalist he is - you should understand that. Become inflexible and life washes you aside like roadway debris under a city street sweeper. Flexibility is not necessarily surrender and change change not be death.