Ah, life
. It's lonely, bitter, painful, and boring. We live alone. We die alone. We suffer. We die. Do I have the strength, the discipline, the WILLINGNESS to see it through to the end? I'm 44 years old. Statistically speaking, I only have about 30 years left, and in my case, probably less than that. And the last 10 years of my alloted time on Earth will probably suck the big, hairy root vegetable.
My friend K called tonight. One of my only guy friends. All my friends seem to be women. K is the only male friend I have who is willing to discuss real topics like death, aging, loneliness, horniness, career, etc. Right now, he's in Alabama attending his stepson's graduation and dealing with his hellion of an ex wife, who's a fucking cunt on wheels.
K and I are in similar situations. We're the same age (OK, I'm 6 months older). We're both developers, although he's more of a mid-level executive now, while I'm still a lowly code geek. We're both really burned out on our jobs because we've been in the computer industry like forever. Maybe it just FEELS like forever in my case. I've been doing this work for 11 years, which is like 50 years in the "real" world. I think computer jobs are sort of like dog years - 5 years of "real" time pass for every 1 year of computer industry time. Anyway, K has been doing computer shit for over 20 years, so it's like he's actually about 100 fucking years old!
We are also both loners, and our love relationships with women always seem to be total fucking disasters. I can't seem to keep a woman to save my fucking life, and K is divorced and dating a work fuck-buddy up in Vancouver, and that situation has been a total nightmare.
We're also both afraid of dying alone, although that reminds me of a great quote from
Up in the Air, which I just watched the other day:
"Starting when I was 12, we moved each one of my grandparents into a nursing facility. My parents went the same way. Make no mistake, we all die alone. Now those cult members in San Diego, with the sneakers and the Kool-Aid, they didn't die alone. I'm just saying there are options."
Thank God for options, right?