Today, however, I'm just trying to keep happy in front of birthday. I'll leave the kicking and screaming for when I turn 40.
Without much effort, I could succumb to lamenting about lost youth and the inevitability of middle age. I could also mention that after a certain age well-meaning friends (and a few spiteful ones) will send a grinning monkey or scantily clad model birthday card containing punch lines about waistlines, hairlines, or Viagra online. Personally, I miss the blatant money holders with Abe Lincoln's head driving a car or playing baseball — and not for the five-spot either.
Unlike when I wrote about turning 30, I won't bemoan, repine or run to the thesaurus about the fact that today I'm officially pushing 40 — or reluctantly pulled headlong. If I did, this would be the paragraph where I would resort to an analogy along the lines of a radial tire. It would include a trite sentence on how my tread is worn and I'm starting to get cupped edges in places, but still road worthy. Oh, and I can't forget the token spare tire remark.
Instead, what epitomizes being on the backstretch of your thirties is that today I'll be taking my five-year-old daughter — resplendent in her pink tutu — to ballet class in the ubiquitous silver minivan. Talk about domesticated bliss. Amazingly, I won't even feel a twinge of male insecurity that leads to night of JELL-O shots and an arm adorned with a flaming skull tattoo. Perhaps I'll save that bit of screaming for when I turn 40.
For the past week, my wife has dutifully asked what I would like for my birthday. My pat answer, given since around 1993, is the verbal equivalent of a shoulder shrug. She might squeeze a "nothing really” out of me, which means take your pick of a book, CD or black tube socks. I just don't know how she would react to a request for a straight axle '55 Chevy with a Muncie Rock Crusher 4-speed and fender well headers? I suspect it would mirror the look my mother gave when I asked for x-ray vision glasses from the back of a Spider-Man comic book.
Aside from a big-block Gasser, the one thing that would make me happy would be a chance to shake the hand that brought me into the world kicking and screaming. Unfortunately like most doctor scrawl, I can't make out the attending physician's name on my birth certificate. So to Dr. Rfnus Smtypio, if you're still out there, thanks for the first of my many wake-up calls across the backside.
Grand Traverse Herald editor Garret Leiva can be reached at 933-1416 or e-mail gleiva@gtherald.com