The original post by Natalie the Singingfool can be found at Thank Goodness I Don’t Look Like Keith Richards Yet
I am finding that old age creeps up on you. You don’t just wake up one day and realize, “I’m old as schnizzle.” It’s more like a series of moments that all add up to the aging process. Thank goodness you don’t wake up one day looking like Keith Richards after a hard night of booze and cigarettes, because I think the shock would be too much.
“WTF?! I’m only 30!”
I’m right there, though, right on the precipice of forthcoming elderhood (my membership to the Stones is still pending).
Take Monday, for example. My much-younger colleagues and I were exchanging weekend stories, and theirs were…muchly much more colorful. They went out to a club on Friday! Then they went to another club! They went hiking early the next morning, then they went bowling at midnight! They stayed out till two AM! They slept until noon and then played video games all day!
What the hell? When did I get so old that I’m tired just hearing about it?
My weekend, in exchange, sounded like an article from Lame Retiree Monthly. I don’t know what’s worse, the level of boredom my weekends entail, or that I so look forward to their uneventful nature. I’m finding the longer I work two jobs, the more I just want to do absolutely nothing on the weekends.
Truth be told though, I’ve never been much of an all-nighter, even in my days of youth and fury. I’d go out maybe once a month, usually to a pub where I’d play darts or chat with my girlfriends. Not one to get wild and crazy, I think I went out dancing maybe five times in my entire twenties. I did a lot of homework during this time. So maybe I was born old.
And now? I go have crazy fun and stay out that late, maybe once a year? Or when I’m on vacation? Maybe?
The funny thing about this situation is that when I do chance to go out on the town, I have a better time than I did when I was young. And I do this sober. I don’t understand it either. I think you try harder to have fun when you know liquor is never going to be involved again, because otherwise staying sober sounds pretty effing bleak. Sometimes I just try to out-weird everyone else around me, which is pretty entertaining.
Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yes. It’s not like I never want to go out and do things; there’s plenty I’d love to go do! It’s just…none of that stuff is here. For instance, I’d love to dance along the edge of the Seine at midnight in a sequined gown. I’d love to go to the Roman cinema to catch the late showing of a Fellini film. I’d love to go to the theater on Broadway and then grab a coffee afterward.
Southern California nightlife is really lacking, in my opinion. Let’s go to the bar and get wasted! Let’s go to the club, dance, get wasted, then get venereal disease from a random stranger! Seriously, there’s not a whole lot else to do here, unless you’re interested in skinny-dipping in the freezing ocean and then getting arrested for indecent exposure, which I am so not into anymore.
Plus, you know, I have to be at work on Monday, and it takes at least two days for me to recover from a late night.
Maybe I just don’t run in the right circles. Perhaps there’s an underbelly of cultural nightlife in L.A. that is members-only, like the Masons or MENSA. I’d be happy to be wrong about this.
However, seeing as L.A. is home to the cast of The Hills, I’m thinking I’m not wrong.
Ah, those bastions of refinement and intellect.
Photo Source, Photo Source 2
