Soon, my Darling

Eeek. I'm going to be 40 next year.

I've been coming to terms with it as of late. The usual rationalizing, I suppose - I've done a decent amount of stuff in my life so far, I've got plans for myself, dreams yet to fulfill. But I have a feeling that once I'm 39 I'm doing to do a lot of unnecessary panicking up until the day of the big one (well, the first big one, since no one really takes 30 that seriously anymore), and so I've decided to start the celebrations early.

Phase I - I Must Add a New Vice
Alcohol is really too easy a path to follow, though a fine and noble one. And I'm not much of a drinker these days. The events that usually merit this kind of debauchery are few and far between, and if I counted making it to five o'clock without getting escorted from my job by security I'd be quite the lush in a matter of days. No, I think there should be an equal and possible wilder substitute for boozing as I sashay down the black path to middle age. Oh, whatever shall it be? What, what, what?

Ah. I know. I shall become . . . a slacker.

You have to realize this goes against my character. I was brought up by hard-working people who instilled a good work ethic in me by osmosis, and to slack off is to disrespect the pillars of my existence. But I have since found out that keeping your nose to the grindstone doesn't necessarily pay off. Instead, it convinces people that you'll do anything that needs doing as long as the job gets done, and even if the job wasn't that important in the first place (yes, marketing!). So what care I that the presentation slides aren't in color and they're bound together with stained clothes pins? I'm off to take a two hour lunch. Just hold all my calls - I'll be back when Honest John's runs out of Bushmill's.

And now to ponder Phase II...