This is a thread for ILXORS IN THEIR 50's

Our cohort is few, but mighty.

abbott being a sexy cold war scientist

OH MY GOD WHY WAS I NEVER THAT

I remember Howdy Doody.

and i thought i was old for remembering leaded gasoline!

madonna, michael jackson, prince and ME -- i am now 50 and 1/2.

sept 1968 was like the gayest time to enter high school

everyone cool in those days were entering college

there is truth lurking here -- people in our sub-generation have a complicated relationship w/our older sibs, the 60s baby boomers. this usage of "gay" is uhm, anachronisitic, or something. (I entered HS in 72 FWIW.)

anachronistic! edgy, you mean!!1!

so is bimble part of this exclusive club?

I didn't expect to get shoulder and back hair this late in the game.

ha was wondering what you meant in the 40s thread

what's up y'all

had a cardiologist call me at 7am to cancel my appointment (snow)

this morning the dentist said that my teeth with metal fillings will all eventually need crowns; seems legit, the youngest of those fillings is 40+ years old

i went to the dentist for lots of work this past year, first time since forever, and it was all space aged nano whatever shit and i think the dentist and his assistant were legit smirking at my one old iron ore filling from when i was a teenager, fifty years ago, in an eastern bloc nation

oh hi, I'm 54 now

peeing takes a long time

backache is a thing

(knocks on wood)

As hinted above, I have a cardiologist now! My primary doctor, who has pretty amazing raw skills -- like hearing -- apparently, thought he heard a murmur in my heartbeat last month. GREAT!

It turns out I have an "unconcerning" prolapse which is a "2" (not a 3 or a 4), so it just has to be checked every year from now on.

Aging is a motherfucker.

all the best morbs

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murmur_(album)#/media/File:R.E.M._-_Murmur.jpg

i am two years older than william hartnell in this picture :D

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/1920x1080/p01hg14p.jpg

(obviously i have regenerated several times: also did not grow up in poverty etc)

He got paid five times more per ep than Anneke Wills was, to make up for the poverty stricken childhood!

what a feelin'

mainly feeling it in my lower back today

Rapidly approaching Sammy Hagar milestone.

Minutemen?

Can you hear me, Dr. Mu

Imagine my surprise

Just realized that the “ordinary guy” in Pavement’s “Stereo” is maybe a reference to “Dr. Wu.” I still got it!

Oh wait

I just went through all the tests you are supposed to do when you get to 50, only 7 years late.

Anyway, all passed 100%, so hey!

I guess that lower back pain is gonna go in the "what do you expect at yr age?" cart.

Thanks for reminding me. I just did the same with one test, the biggest of all, remaining to be done in the next few months. If the news is bad I will speed post my remaining backlog of screennames.

I was Big C diagnosed about five months after turning 50, so maybe i didn't get the other tests.

(i'm mostly OK now, just medicated)

He got paid five times more per ep than Anneke Wills was, to make up for the poverty stricken childhood!

― calzino

for two months and then he got sacked. quintessential "being in your '50s" experience tbh

Definitely another bummer about being in your 50s. If you lose your job, you can't necessarily bounce back. You might never have a salaried position again.

Definitely another bummer about being in your 50s. If you lose your job, you can't necessarily bounce back. You might never have a salaried position again.

HI DERE. Raise your hand if you have been rendered depressed, rudderless, and without direction because you've structured your life around a eight-hour, salaryman working schedule for so long that when you were inevitably disrupted out of your career you've become addicted to the anxiety and panic of not being able to focus. oops TMI

raises hand

in my case it took several years to work through the trauma of being ejected and to figure out other ways to live ... I won't trivialize the difficulties involved, but now the only thing I miss from my salaryman days is the income

i need the med coverage

As mentioned on the other thread, in January I was made redundant 7 days before I hit 50.
my skills are probably no longer in demand (manual software tester) due to an increased focus on automated testing, and to be honest, I think I have had enough of software/corporate culture.
The last few months I have been a stay at home dad, and will probably remain so while mk2 goes through his teenage trials and tribulations (3 more years).
The very idea of being the Office New Boy at the age of 50 fills me with dread, and I know it would bring on a lot of stress and anxiety.
I am in a 'fortunate' position in that due to life insurance, I have no mortgage and get a small occupational pension from BH so will not be made homeless or starve, but coming to terms with a very different financial outlook is still the big stumbling block.
That and daytime TV.
Thank goodness for 'Walter Presents .. '.

In other news : re lower back pain.
Having sat on my arse in an office for 30 years the last 2 years were very problematic re my back.
My solution : swimming.
I have started swimming 4 times a week (roughly 1km each time), and the change has been very noticeable.

Slightly overlapping with what I said on the Forties thread, but I was made redundant at 51, also due to having skills which are no longer in demand. My partner has always earned a lot more than me, so we were OK - but then he was made redundant last year, at 58. Thankfully his skills are still in demand, but he refuses to re-dose himself with the poison of corporate culture - so it's taking a while to sort things out, and we are having to be careful with money, for the first time since our twenties.

I cover my monthly outgoings with DJ-ing (a weekly gig and a monthly gig) and Discogs selling (I inherited a rare and valuable collection, and am being ruthless with my own). We also have a lodger, for the first time in nearly thirty years - a good friend, also in his fifties, going through a divorce and coming to terms with being on the gay side of bi. He hates his job and wants to change back to his old career, but it would involve a precarious salary drop, at least to begin with, which isn't great timing when you're getting divorced.

Despite this difficulties, my net life satisfaction level is still hugely in credit. I feel busy, fulfilled, and grateful for all I've got. But I can't deny the presence of a persistent low-level background hum, which says "You are uniquely unemployable. Everyone else can get jobs, but you haven't got what it takes." It's bullshit, but it's there.

Fuck those cry baby under 50s in that other thread. Here's to getting Saga Holiday ads and people ringing me to ask if I want to cash in my pension and/or release some equity from my home and to being told I can't increase my life insurance because YOU R 2 OLD.

Also I just put up a desk, not too shabby eh? I'll be paying for it tomorrow mind.

it doesn't start getting real until you can't remember your 40s

xp Incidentally my pension is not worth the paper it's printed on so who's laughing now Mr Random Cold Caller?

it gets really real when your pathetic gig income and Obamacare fast-track you to bankruptcy

what a feelin'

― the ignatius rock of ignorance (Dr Morbius), Monday, July 2, 2018 8:55 AM (one year ago) bookmarkflaglink

Right in my knees.

oh hi, I'm 54 now
peeing takes a long time

― WilliamC, Thursday, January 4, 2018 12:24 PM

Seven weeks shy of 56, but I found the secret: constant impotent rage keeps me young.

momus is almost 50

He’ll be 60 in February.

Fuck those cry baby under 50s in that other thread.

They're just coming to grips with their ultimate mortality, poor dears. Be kind to them.

I’m 55 and having a pretty good time.

I seem to have rediscovered my mojo this year: got serious about my job, holidayed in Japan, rekindled my interests in art and photography, good clothes (lost 40lb weight which helped), and the joy of short breaks by Eurostar.

A begrudging Happy May Day from this merry band of sullen teens.

https://www.ncpedia.org/sites/default/files/Flora_macdonald.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/09/Walter_Crane_-_A_Garland_for_May_Day_1895%2C_original_relief_print.jpg/500px-Walter_Crane_-_A_Garland_for_May_Day_1895%2C_original_relief_print.jpg?_=20250504195009

people i bumped not one but two may day threads
what is happening

#onethread

people i bumped not one but two may day threads
what is happening

― Piggy Lepton (La Lechera), Friday, May 1, 2026 9:36 AM (nine minutes ago)

the dictatorship of the proletariat, hopefully

Kate, you are being unnecessarily apologetic, mookie & tracer were being dicks.

― sarahell, Friday, May 1, 2026 9:14 AM (thirty-one minutes ago)

i mean it's fuckin' ilx, one of the things a treasure about our generation is that we _can_ be dicks sometimes.

in fact, i'll, honestly, take mookie's post as a license to go off

i'm fifty years old, i can't get a job, i've had thirty years of damn near every sort of mental health treatment and i still can't focus enough to watch movies or read books or listen to music or even _think_ most of the time, i've been through insane amounts of shit that i've learned to not talk about because when i do people start acting like there's something wrong with _me_, my friend group consists mostly of people who never leave their homes and who center their lives around robot anime and furry cannibal porn and i can't talk about _that_ either because people will be like "i thought trans people were normal just like the rest of us", every time i read the news some powerful organization has issued an official ruling that we're subhuman or, possibly, for a change, that we're _human_, and i'm supposed to take this as "good news". i'm chronically depressed, i want to cry all the time but i know if i do that nobody will talk to me because i'm a "downer", never mind that i have _good fucking reason_ to cry, never mind that there's no way i can cry all the tears i'd need to if i want to truly grieve and heal from all the suffering i've experienced. i haven't slept a full night's sleep in three years. i'd complain about the nightmares except that waking life is actually _worse_, in fact. i just want to be able to talk about my life, which is _not_ a normal life, and not have everything fucking center around _me_. i want to _feel_ like a fucking adult human female, which is what i am.

remember how batshit everyone was for war in 1914? they thought it would be fantastic and rejuvenate the manly vigorousness of the polity.

“Everyone”? Uh, no, definitely not in the US…which is strongly backed up by the fact we didn’t enter the war for a few years after it had been going on? Anti-war sentiment was found on both the left and right of the political spectrum.

this was clearly an exaggeration based on responses in europe; i was not claiming that costa ricans were itching for war in 1914. come on

The context was American politics and your post implied that everyone in America felt that way, which Alfred and I pointed out the inaccuracy of.

I would hope that you are mature enough not to do the absurd goalpost moving that brought lols to the Ludicris thread, but would be more tedious here.

i'm only in my 50s, i'm too young to have any memory of 1914

I would hope that you are mature enough not to do the absurd goalpost moving

I understood mookieproof's context shift. The start of WWI was an entirely European affair with no connection to American politics at that time and his use of "everyone" works fine in that implied context. He just didn't signal his context shift clearly enough. For him to clarify that shift retroactively is hardly grounds for calling him out as immature and absurd.

fine? let the record show that i've been set straight about history by sarahell, literalist

Congratulations viking!

Technically I am now in my fifties, but I like to think that ages are like centuries. You aren't really in your fifties until you're fifty-one. And you can't say that you're an experienced fifty-something until you're in your late fifties, because if you're only fifty-two (for example) you only have two years' experience of being fifty, which isn't enough to pass judgement.

So I am philosophically still in my late forties, even though I am technically fifty. I am now half the age of David Attenborough. By coincidence he started filming Life on Earth the same year I was born, 1976 - they took their time, back then - so I am as old as Attenborough's nature programmes. Although I actually grew up with The Living Planet, which was broadcast in 1984. I'm too young to remember Earth, which would have been broadcast when I was three years old. I wonder if that affected my outlook. I can't stand animals, but I do love rocks. Volcanic, metamorphic, oleaginous. Those are the three kinds of rock.

I still remember the theme tune. It was composed by Elizabeth Parker, who appears to have been asked to "do a Vangelis" but on a lower budget:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYQp5BP9cb0

There's some hot vocoder action at 02:01. I think the lesson is that if you want to make the soundtrack to a nature documentary, all you have to do is lock an intense, plummy-voiced woman into a room with some reel-to-reel tape decks, a mixing desk, and some synthesisers, and within a few weeks you'll have a set of ambient soundscapes that evoke the sound of a desert. It worked for the BBC in the 1960s and 1970s. It can work today.

It strikes me that the CGI BBC globe from the 1980s - the "Computer Originated World" - is basically a recreation of the opening titles of Life on Earth. It's hard not to think of David Attenborough without getting nervous, because he isn't quite 100. There are still four days to go. Four days in which Attenborough might die or the world might be obliterated in nuclear fire, and I'm not sure which of those two events would be sadder. On the one hand most of the creatures in Life on Earth are dead now, and a lot of them are extinct, but with AI we're reaching a point where the entire animal kingdom is obsolete, so there is that. If this was a Youtube show there would now be a scene break.

I'm going to tell you a true story about being old. This is actually true. I'm going to share it with you. Strangers on the internet that I've never met. And the hundred or so random lurkers who aren't logged in. And the one person who is reading this forty years from now because they're writing a history of the 2020s and they're curious to know what fifty-something former hipsters got up to. I'm going to put the story into the next paragraph because this paragraph is too long.

As mentioned passim I am a fully-qualified motorcyclist. There's a saying in the motorcycling community. "All the gear, all the time", often abbreviated ATTA... ATGA... ATTAG... I can't remember the abbreviation. AT... it's confusing. All the gear, all the time. ATTG... I keeping thinking about the AT-ATs from Star Wars. ATAG. All the gear, all the time. The idea is that you're supposed to wear full motorcycle leathers even when you're just riding to the shops, not just when you're riding at high speed or through twisty roads or trapped in a fully-equipped sex dungeon.

But I mostly use my motorcycle for commuting, or going to Lidl, and I feel absurd striding into Lidl with leather gear, so I bought a thick denim jacket. A thick, black, denim jacket. It probably won't save me from impact injuries, but it might prevent abrasion. It's also light enough to wear all the time.

Now, here's the thing. Here's the punchline. It's coming. A couple of weeks ago I bought a pair of jeans. Primark. Relaxed fit. Thankfully jeans for men are only available in a few different styles. Unlike jeans for women. Do you know how many styles of jeans there are for women? Ten styles. That's a lot of styles. No wonder women are so confused. In addition to all the expectations society thrusts upon them they can't even buy jeans without being made to feel inadequate. By jeans.

I can't remember where this is going. Oh, yes. Jeans. I bought a pair of denim jeans. And a couple of days ago I saw my reflection in a window whilst out shopping. I was wearing a denim jacket, and denim jeans. Double denim. I was, without thinking about it, wearing double denim. That's the punchline.

And then I had my fiftieth birthday. To paraphrase the classic internet story, "John plasmaed at him and tried to blew him up, but then the ceiling fell and they were trapped and not able to kill. "No! I must kill the demons," he shouted. The radio said "No, John. You are the demons." And then, John was a fifty year old man."

I'm the same age as Mark E Smith when he wrote "Fifty Year Old Man". A sobering thought, because he died only ten years later. A pretty horrible way to go. Do I lead a more healthy life than Mark E Smith? Will that help? Who knows.

I mean tbf I think everyone in the universe leads a more healthy life than MES but you know.

ashley—on our planet on the North American continent we call double denim a “Canadian Tuxedo”

I’m think I’m detecting more possible influence of Ronnie Corbett on Ashley than David Attenborough or MES tbh.

Sadly Attenborough has never gotten around to studying the ecosystems of Internet message boards.

That’s goodnight from me & goodnight from him

genuine Q: how many of the countries on the continent use a term invented by a US company to leverage a US millionaire into bullying a Canadian service worker as a publicity stunt to describe double denim