MORE CRUISIN', RAMBLIN' AND THINKIN' THAT MIGHT ONLY BE RELEVANT TO ME

I was cruising with a friend a couple of days ago. We were weaving in and out of east Windsor sub-divisions not for any particular reason other than to cruise. Windows down, while flipping through the tunes and talking about nothing (which during these tough economic times is usually the best conversation subject) we came upon my friend's old grade school. Unfortunately for us, mostly him, his old stomping grounds as a kid had been reduced to a flat rock of nothing. Memories reduced to rubble, visions of past fun knocked down and hauled away like the hallways and lockers had been by the bulldozers and dump trucks. Though demolished for reasons unknown (probably to make room for new houses that no one will buy, or an empty lot with no future) this got me thinking. There are many signs that point towards one getting old, some more obvious than others, but they all seem to lean in the same general direction. Down. Besides the total extinction of one's Alma mater, I was thinking of other ways, in case you couldn't tell yourself (and some people can't) where life tells you you're getting old. Here they are in no particular order but ordered from 1 to 18 : 1) Most if not all of you friends are either a) divorced, b) have a kid, or are c) looking to buy a house. 2) And, If you are one of these pre-mentioned people, you might not hang out with too many old friends, but the one's you do are the one's who are least like you. 3) You have had over twenty jobs in your life, despite not having held a steady one in years. 4) Your favourite professional athletes are in the prime of their lives, and are much younger than you. 5) You no longer care about how you look, smell or sound to other people. 6) You can no longer do things that, as a kid you could with ease and without thought. (eg. riding a bike with no hands, somersaults, skipping rope, adapting to cold weather, eating shitty food, not worrying about the future, making new friends, and recovering from injuries. 7) Hanging out with your family is as or more fun than hanging out with friends, 8) You're no longer cool and you know it, which is much worse than just being 'un-cool.' 9) Getting out of bed is harder and harder everyday, as is walking up and down stairs, understanding and relating to popular culture, reaching for things, bending over for things, taking showers, finding steady work during a recession, and shaving. 9) You start to care about things you know you'll never really understand (eg. the economy, taxes, mortgages, investing, weather forecasts, and corpora amylaceas, huh?). 10) Old, minor- injuries you sustained as a kid re-surface as major-discomforts as an adult, even though you thought said injuries were minor and forgot they even occurred until they came back, perhaps leading you to believe that they are new injuries as a result from getting old. 11) You call someone and forget who you called until they answer the phone. 12) People you once held as a baby are now holding their own babies.13) Your old tree fort and wide-open field where you played as a kid has been a subdivision for ten years. 14) Your back hurts when its feeling good. 15) You don't pretend to like somebody, you just don't like them. 16) When you want to, 'let it loose,' you must now take into consideration the next day, 17) You hurt yourself sleeping, and 18) You no longer act spontaneously and with reckless abandonment, instead you carefully weigh your options then make a responsible decision based not on how it will affect you, but how it will affect others around you.