I Miss Mike and Ike

Tomorrow one of my youngest and handsomest friends, who I met when he was 16, is turning 64. I called him this afternoon to offer my birthday wishes, and we had a great phone conversation for almost an hour.  Lots of laughs, which is surprising since three-quarters of the time was spent sharing our various surgeries, blood pressure stats, medications, advice on specific degenerating body parts and fears of certain and impending doom. We had a blast. Of course, on Facebook this would all have been boiled down to: "HBD, hope you have a great one, you look fabulous, not a day older," blah, blah, fucking blah.

I think I may be getting too old for Facebook, i.e. sharing the truth of my life on a public forum. Possibly it's because the details are depressing, involving the inevitable decline of health and general disrepair of my still functioning human body. (Hey, it happens to the best of us, no matter what you see on those late-night, half-hour power juicer infomercials when you can't sleep.) But another reason might be the realization that, after a lifetime of sharing, one finally understands that hardly anybody gives a hoot what happened to you today or yesterday or last week or what will happen to you tomorrow or next month, they just want to know how it will impact them.

While I do have young friends on Facebook, I have blocked the news feeds of anyone under the age of 40. (Not you, Oz.) Please, spare me--life is simply too short for silly trivia, at least from where I sit. I don't feel too old for anything else, though, at least not yet, except maybe Mike & Ike's, which I once loved but now see so clearly that they rot my insides. With age comes wisdom. But I do miss them so...