Deadline

It's less than an hour until my 30th birthday.

Half of me wants to join my girlfriend on the couch, snuggle her and watch some TV.

The other half wants to run down to the lake, rip off my clothes and dive in, howling at the moon as I paddle naked through the water.

So I compromised -- I'm writing.

I'm scared as I write this. Scared of age, scared of the homogeneity that seems to come with it. I'm scared of my new job. Scared of people who think emote is a big word.

I'm scared of never having that flush of excitement only the young seem to possess. I'm scared of that curse of the 30-something former hip kid -- the curse of the expert. There's a floppy-haired, horn-rimmed subset of 30-somethings, sick little man-hags who know they'll never be as excited about anything as they were at 19. So now they have to know more about it. They have to be able to break down movies, music, art, society. They have to have opinions and criticisms. They don't have the desire to open up and scream "I LIKE IT, SO HELP ME FUCK I LIKE IT!"

 As for The Concert Project, I made it. B1g T1me was the last show of my 20s, thank God. A friend and I sat at a bar I had never seen before, drank beer, took shots of rye and reveled in the music. We called it quits after the first set and went to our respective homes. I worked in the morning.

Technically, though, the show that finished the 10 the project required was a U2 cover band. They have an upcoming gig at a church, their site says. The gig is called the U2charist.

So it goes.

I want to stand on a cliff and scream again. I want to feel like a fucked-up kid, but in fact I'm a man. I've been a man for quite some time. It snuck up on me.

There's half an hour to go. I've been writing for 20 minutes, with a short break to go to the bathroom.

I don't know what's going to happen to the rest of my life. 30 is just a number, but it's a number that makes you think. This paralysis could apply to any moment of any life. It just comes more often when the odometer of life rolls over another milestone.

Here's a prayer from a godless man. It's a prayer for my 30s.

May I swim in the water and never find shore.

May I never find peace, never find answers. May I never stop looking for truth, even after I've found it.

May I never think I know anything. May I never give up and say, "Well, that's it. No new interests, no new hopes. No new dreams." May I always find something new to love.

May I remember at all moments that more can be done. May I remember at all moments that the good fight is on.

May I not want these same things forever. May my godless prayer change as I do.

May I find happiness, but not at the expense of meaning.

May I never fucking move to Naperville.

And as God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly. First person to name that reference wins a birthday card.

18 minutes to go. 

Happy Birthday to me.

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Paul Dailing
Paul Dailing (pictured standing in front of the World's Largest Boot), now has a different haircut. He's also lost a bit of weight since that picture was taken, but not as much as he likes to think. More