You know you are getting old when:

[tonyb]

At my 50th it was interesting.

But even that’s getting to be ancient history for you, ain’t it? You’ve disclosed enough autobiographical information to have me thinking you are among the most senior among us.

 

[Who?]

But even that’s getting to be ancient history for you, ain’t it? You’ve disclosed enough autobiographical information to have me thinking you are among the most senior among us.

Pretty much.

My 50th High School reunion was in 2001.

 

[Edward]

My apologies; that's what I get for assuming everyone world wide is as self-important as most Californians.

No offence taken at all - plenty of things with me are *all* about the vanity (including the weightloss!). It's just with glasses that it's only me being cheap. . I'd mind less the pricey lenses, I think, if it was a one-and-done deal, but the kicker is if I need to replace them every few years; I like to have a few pairs for different looks, which is limiting if they get expensive. Mind you, my biggest gripe is how much more expensive it is the have my glasses relensed at an optician than the whole pair would cost me in the same place on the same day... and then they change the entire collection too often and not to my tastes for me to be able to just pick a pair...

Be thankful to live in the age of relatively lightweight plastic lenses. When I started wearing spectacles they weren’t “glasses” in name only, as most are today. Those glass lenses were HEAVY, and the pads dug into my nose, sometimes rubbing it so raw that the sweat made it sting.

My first four pairs or so - this is roughly 1984 to 89 - were glass lenses; I remember two occasions when they got dropped and broke. For some years opticians were reluctant to recommend the plastic because in the early days it scratched so easy (at least the stuff they used round our way), but I agree - it's definitely nice to have something lighter that can stand a drop.

Girls now get tattoos to make it look like they are wearing stockings with seams up the back.

I've known a few. Works really well with sheers, though the illusion is less complete with fishnets. Only drawback is it rules out wearing actually seamed stockings, as it's impossible to get the lines matched up, though on the flipside non-seamed sheers are so much more readily available, and a straight line is guaranteed.... (adjust according to the competency of the tattooist, of course).

I used to wear seams quite a bit until I came home from work one day to find an extremely creepy note in my door from an anonymous fetishist stalker. That was when I bought a gun.

As far as glasses go, I can't handle bifocals -- they trigger migraines. So I have two pairs of specs -- the regular rimless ones for distance viewing and driving, and a pair of horn-rimmed Harold Lloyd-type glasses for reading. I got two different styles so I'd be able to identify them by touch and not grab the wrong ones. But no matter what the situation I end up wearing the wrong pair and misplacing the other.

I'm always halfway hoping my natural short-sightedness will correct itself over time and I'll only need reading glasses, which would make things much more convenient. My distance vision is somewhat better now than it was in my late twenties, but not close to not needing the magnifiers for details like bus numbers and train readouts...

Ah, class reunions. I have to agree with Trenchfriend, they're mostly a waste of an evening. My wife and I went to our respective "10 year" reunions and, except for a few people, we spent the nights talking with people we had maintained contact with during the intervening years.

As a cultural concept they never really seem to have taken off anywhere I've lived (though of course they're nonetheless a fixture of many UK-set sitcoms, a cultural inheritance from the US, just like end-credit gags). There was talk of an unofficial one for the thirtieth anniversary of my GCSE year (many of us stayed on for A-levels after that, but turning sixteen is the first point where you can legally exit full time education in the UK (or was in my day; there's always talk of changing it) and many did, so thirty years on from that was definitely a milestone. I'd not mind giving it a go, though as long as it wasn't of the variety where we all had to stay ni the same place!

At my 50th it was interesting.

There were people whom I recognized immediately, people whom I did not recognize at all, and people of whom I had absolutely no recollection. Neither they nor their names rang any bells at all.

Of the non-recognized ones, in many cases I asked the organizers “Is so-and-so here?” and they would point the person out. In one case I sat on the school bus with this guy every morning and night, and when I saw him I could not believe that was who he was. It was like a completely different person.

Strange, and slightly upsetting, but I was glad I went. I did not go to any subsequent ones.

I found my classmates to be ever so much more interesting as adults than they were 50 years prior.

We moved away right after I graduated, so I had not seen any of them for those 50 years.

What weirds me out seeing folks I was at school with on facebook now is how bald so many of them are. Why on earth this seems odd to me when I've been shaving my own head for sixteen years now due to balding I have no idea.... that's the bit that makes me laugh.

 

[Tiki Tom]

When, this morning, I could remember the name of the Tunguska Event, but I couldn’t remember the name of Bill and Hillary’s daughter.

When “Toenail clippers for seniors” is the ad that popped into my newsfeed this morning. :-(

 

[GHT]

Why is it, for men at least, most of us lose both hair and hair colour, on the head that is. Yet as if by way of compensation, the hair in my nose and ears grows so strong I need clippers to trim it back.

Eyebrows completely fox me. They never seem to lose their colour but does the hair in my brows grow, or what? I actually have them trimmed at my barbers.

 

[Zombie_61]

Why is it, for men at least, most of us lose both hair and hair colour, on the head that is. Yet as if by way of compensation, the hair in my nose and ears grows so strong I need clippers to trim it back.

One word: testosterone. As we age, it changes both the color and the texture of the various hairs on our bodies making the hair (wherever it might be) appear to be thicker.

Eyebrows completely fox me. They never seem to lose their colour but does the hair in my brows grow, or what? I actually have them trimmed at my barbers.

Yes, our eyebrows grow. All of the hairs on our bodies grow, but nature stops this growth when they reach a certain length. My brows were doing just fine until the woman who was cutting my hair decided they needed to be trimmed and, without asking me first, trimmed them. Ever since, I have to trim them when I trim my beard (usually once a week) or they grow to ridiculous lengths.

 

[Tiki Tom]

Eyebrow trimming is something that I never used to do. But now it’s a part of my normal routine. On the other hand, I am now very happy that I have a beard that actually looks like a beard, and it slowly continues to thicken. When I was in my twenties and thirties, I was the most smooth-cheeked, baby-faced man imaginable. Glad to finally look like a grizzled old prospector.

But what’s going on with my toenails? ick.

 

[The one from the North]

My theory is that gravity is to blame. I've noticed that as hair escapes from the top of my head, my chest and back grows more and more fur. So it must be gravity slowly pulling hair down my body!

 

[tonyb]

But what’s going on with my toenails? ick.

My podiatrist trimmed my big toenails back to nearly nothing. Now I apply this anti-fungal stuff daily.

There’s a treatment involving a laser which, according to the podiatrist, is all but certain to do the job. But it runs $800 and insurance doesn’t cover it. I recently saw an ad for a laser gizmo available to us laypeople, for use at home. I won’t buy one until I see reliable accounts that it actually works.

 

[BobHufford]

There’s a treatment involving a laser which, according to the podcast, is all but certain to do the job.

Is the laser treatment used to remove the nail? I had this done decades ago for a chronic ingrown toenail and it didn't remove all the cells, so I have this mutant 3-part nail going different directions. It freaks my kids out. They allow me to do the socks-with-sandals thing.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^
Couldn’t tell you, Bob. I’ve had toenails come off completely without help from any health care provider, laser gizmo or not.

 

[Tiki Tom]

Shudders.

 

[GHT]

Shudders.

Cracks up laughing! Sorry Bob.

 

[tonyb]

Shudders.

Like injections in the eye, the thought of having a toenail come off is worse than the experience of it.

Such is my experience, anyway, which quite differs from closing a car door on the thumb. That was memorable.

 

[tonyb]

“When your friends begin to flatter you on how young you look, it’s a sure sign you’re getting old.”

— attributed to Mark Twain

 

[HLP]

You mentally disapprove of the way young colleagues dress before remembering how you used to dress when you were that age.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Isn't all this toenail stuff a scene from "The Fly?"

 

[Trenchfriend]

When even independent bands, you never knew really knew about, are not more existing.

 

[LizzieMaine]

When you see people with snow white hair, long white beards, canes, and walkers lining up at the box office to see a movie about David Bowie.

 

[tonyb]

When …

… in contemplating actions you might take — recreational, entrepreneurial, educational, whatever — you find yourself muttering, “I better get around to that while I still can.”