This is the inevitable thread for ILxors in their forties

Purely by coincidence I recently passed my motorcycle test. That's not a middle-aged thing. Not at all. But it does mean that I now have a legitimate reason to own a pair of leather trousers. And one of those Arab-style scarves that Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman wore in Long Way Round. The melancholic thing is that McGregor and Boorman were in their thirties in 2004. They were a decade ahead of me. It pains me to think that 2004 was twenty years ago.

NB I do actually own a pair of leather trousers. They have a zip around the waist that zips into a compatible motorcycle jacket, thus making an all-in-one zipped-up suit, and yes this sentence is a reference to Alan Partridge's monologue about buying surround speakers for his miniature hi-fi. I do not however own a BMW 1250GS but there is still time.

It's odd re-watching Long Way Round in 2024. It was shot with early-2000s digital video. Even the crappest Youtube motorcycle people have hi-def headcams and drones nowadays. But only a few of them have any charisma. There's a great Youtube motorcyclist called Itchy Boots, who recently broke her collarbone in Tanzania, but she's ace. And another one called Doodle on a Motorcycle who is tiny, but has no trouble riding larger bikes.

Motorcycles are a triumph of hope over reality. Every time I hop on my motorcycle I think about the sad people in their cars. I have to put on a bunch of safety gear, while they just get in their cars. How sad is that? When I arrive at my destination I take off my gloves and helmet and unzip my jacket and chain up the bike, while sad people in their cars just sort of get out of their car. Who has the last laugh? It's them, isn't it. Semi-detatched suburban Mr Jones. They have the last laugh.

To date I have been waved at by a small boy in a Spiderman suit. I have had a middle-aged man ask me about parking charges. I have not yet had any luck with women. And although I'm 100% heterosexual, not a single man has offered to tie me up in my leather gear while spanking my testicles with a fly swatter. I would politely decline, but it would be gratifying if someone asked.

Behind all of this light banter is the realisation that, yes, I'm half-way through life. Except that the first few years didn't count, because I was a kid, and the last few years aren't going to be much fun, so I'm actually two-thirds of the way through life. And death is a permanent black abyss of nothingness, an unavoidable black abyss of nothingness that I can only avoid by drinking myself into oblivion. But on the other hand one of my uncles never left the county of Wiltshire in his whole life, so I've faced with the horrible suspicion that I have actually achieved more in my life - despite struggling constantly with poverty - than most of my immediate family, and that millions of desperate refugees would kill and die to swap places with me, so perhaps I should keep my existential crises to myself.

And although I'm 100% heterosexual, not a single man has offered to tie me up in my leather gear while spanking my testicles with a fly swatter. I would politely decline, but it would be gratifying if someone asked.

consider yourself officially asked, lmao.

i feel like i've been in a mid-life crisis for the last 5 years, and i'm only 41 - still time to do the motorcycle thing but not the money, sadly, and idk i'm more scared about the crash statistics than i used to be. anyway i support any and all mid-life motorcycle flings.

I guess this is a midlife crisis mindset, just really thinking a lot about how there are a finite number of times I will do certain things again, how I’m running out of time to accelerate my career, thinkin about how much older
I am than other people, listening to the offspring… prob some depression mixed in

This weekend I got a sickness bug that has left me feeling sick to the very pit of my being and while trying to sleep it off I sneezed in bed and fucked my back. I'm ready for Charon, tbh.

now look

im in my forties saying it so thats got to be factored in

but

theres colds and flus and whatnot out there atm that 100% are coming with a side order of muscles getting wrecked for whatever reason

You might well be right, darragh. I stretch every morning, do yoga and swim and still my back is wrecked. It's a bastard.

Bartender asked how old I am and I wasn’t about to lie

I keep thinking today is Easter

Eye test this morning, first one in three years due to my uselessness. While I still don't need glasses, they would help with reading and screen work, so I'm tempted, as both of those feel like they require some additional concentration nowadays. Going to think about it...

“These out of touch 35 year olds”

“These out of touch 35 year olds”

https://i.imgur.com/YunMtQK.png

Too late

As of today, half way through em

“It’s nine,” the bartender says
“What?”
“It’s nine!”
“What?”
*looks at pickleback*
“Oh!”

Hurt my knee dancing at Pitchfork Fest lmao

lol perfect

i think i'm gonna need a bigger pill container :( the one i have is just morning/evening and the morning one can barely fit all the pills i'm taking. :(

Dinner with two forks

Accepted an invite from a friend to try playing pickleball for the first time this morning. Seemed like a low-impact, low-risk way to get some physical activity as an out-of-shape 40something. Within the first 10min managed to lose my footing and do a complete Keystone Kops slapstick wipeout, fell on my back and somehow managed to slide and bonk my head on a nearby fencepost.

ooof

oh no :( are u okay?

Oof!!! hope you’re okay

I have a Notes file on my phone for the things I need to talk to my doctor about at my next appointment

yes!

i have a fuckin *plan* about when i will next set up an appt in three months

this is a new thing :(

I’m fine thanks just sore, but I have decided to skip the outdoor concert in a nearby park tonight in favor of laying down on a heating pad all evening

<3

i just keep having these accidents, is the thing, just little minor accidents, but i've been a regular visitor at the immediate care of late

i fell in the bathtub and put a hole in my lip, went to the immediate care for that, no problem, they got this cool medical glue, barely a scar

i didn't poop for a week, went to immediate care for that, they just said "well take laxatives until you do poop", and yeah that worked. i was at the point where the directions said "see a doctor if symptoms persist after a week", and the symptoms did

last sunday i cut my finger open making dinner. i didn't tell them i was making breakfast cereal for dinner. look i have ADHD and i couldn't find the scissors to cut open the bag, ok? i wasn't _trying_ to cut my finger open.

today i'm accepting that i probably dislocated my thumb somehow. don't know how. maybe carrying groceries home. my friends tell me that they'll take me to the store, that i shouldn't be carrying heavy groceries home by myself. they say that but when i ask they're busy with something else. if i need a ride to immediate care, a lot of them are busy but i can find _someone_ who'll take me.

so i put an improvised splint on my thumb. couldn't find anything else that would work so i'm actually using an injection needle. i know it's probably unsafe to use an injection needle as a splint in, like, theory

in practice, because of safety engineering the sheath is _very_ unlikely to open up by accident. so i don't really feel like i'm gonna accidentally stick myself. even if i do, it's a clean needle, an accidental stick won't kill me.

the bigger problem is making sure i don't wrap the medical gauze too tight and cut off my circulation. had to try it a couple times before i felt good about it. the good thing about having some of the extracurricular interests i have is that i'm _very_ aware of my circulation and know the importance of taking immediate action if i start getting numb. i got a few different pairs of safety shears scattered around the place, although it's been a _loooooooooooong_ time since i've been in a situation where i might genuinely need them :(

so i figure i guess i need to get a ride to immediate care _again_ so they can splint up my thumb properly.

i guess it makes sense when i think about it. the people at immediate care are nice and take care of me. they don't blame me for being hurt. people just get hurt sometimes. they don't make a big deal out of it either, which is just as important. for a long time i've known that folks take empirically verifiable physical injuries more seriously than they take other kinds of hurt, even though other kinds of hurt are just as real, need to be cared for just as much. and none of this stuff, i want to be clear, i'm not doing any of it _consciously_. i'm not deliberately going out and trying to hurt myself. i've just noticed a pattern where i'm suffering minor injuries to an unusual extent.

it makes me feel good, going to immediate care. a lot of times i worry that i can't take care of myself, that i'm not a functional human being. when i take care of my body, the small injuries, it reinforces the idea that i can and do, in fact, take care of myself. that i can handle small problems before they become big problems. if i go to immediate care they'll be able to tell if my thumb needs to be reset so it doesn't heal to where it's permanently out of, like, typical anatomical position. i feel good about myself for checking on that, even if it turns out nothing needs to be reset. i worry less. i'm privileged enough to have good health insurance, i might as well use it when i'm injured.

it also makes me think of my mom... i worry a lot that i'm, like, not as good as my mom, that she gets shit done and i don't. in fact she didn't get shit done, necessary stuff, and whenever it was pointed out to her that she was neglecting her kids she'd talk about how hard it was raising four kids by herself without any help or support from anyone else. ok, well, when she didn't have four kids to take care of, when it was just her, she lay in her own filth for two days rather than call an ambulance to get medical treatment. when her son called and said "so yeah you should get an ambulance" she didn't listen to him, so he had to call her sister, and she listened to her sister. which is another reason, i think, it's important for me to get medical care when i need it. so one it's not really that she didn't have any help or support and more that she actively refuses other people's help when it's offered. one of the things i work very hard to do is to ask for and accept help from other people when i need it. it's really hard for me because sometimes they say "no" which hurts a lot, i feel like i don't _deserve_ help, which isn't true, but a lot of times people need help and it's not our fault or anything, we deserve help, but we just don't get it. it's not just me. i see it with other people all the time. they need and deserve help, and they don't get it, and sometimes they die. and it makes me real mad, because there _are_ people who have the power to help but don't. and it just always seems to fall on those of us who don't really have the resources to help, who sacrifice a lot of ourselves, who often really hurt ourselves, trying to help other people. so i don't blame people when i ask them to help and they say "no" because i know it's not their responsibility. there's not always a lot of overlap between those who are willing and those who are able.

and it makes it extra hard because... there's this autism thing that some of us call "persistent desire for autonomy", though the allistic people decided to call it "pathological demand avoidance". something i've unfortunately extensively learned firsthand is that... when i ask someone for help and they give it to me, that person, whether they intend it or not, has a certain power. if someone has power and control over me, that gives them a lot of opportunity to do bad things to me. and for me to get out of that situation, that's kinda difficult if i'm depending on them to get some of my needs met. so i give up a lot, really, to have... this brief opportunity to live on my own, to not be vulnerable to abuse. a lot of my life i've been in situations where people who didn't have my best interests at heart had control over me. i still have that situation with my job, but i guess we all gotta get paid. i'm not hopeful of getting into a better situation, job-wise, although people who care about me really encourage me to keep pushing for that. i mean. we all gotta make compromises.

if i got the opportunity to, like, take care of myself, and not be blamed or judged or rejected for it, that's nice. i like that. i'm not consciously self-harming at all. i'm working harder to take care of myself than i ever have before. human beings are just complicated, i guess.

Using a needle as a splint is not something you should do
Please take care of yourself ❤️

yeah, the injection needle was just the best thing i had at hand. well, it motivated me to get it looked at properly, at least

i went to immediate care and they got me a proper splint. they're not sure if it's a sprain or a hairline fracture. doesn't really matter. i'll be fine.

good news is that i type a lot slower now that i'm down one opposable thumb, so i'll probably be posting less for a bit :)

yeah god plz do not do that

(xpost)

oh good glad u got a proper splint!

I can’t read a check anymore, even in broad daylight

I don’t want to have to bring my reading glasses with me when I go out on a bar hop. Guess it’s another reason to pay cash. That I can still see

for a second i thought this meant you *write* checks at bars

He's not?

Well, wait. If it's the bar tab we're talking about, what difference would it make to pay with cash or credit?

i assumed that 'i can't read a check anymore' meant he couldn't read a bar tab. although yes why would that be a reason to pay one way or another?

if calstars was ever writing personal checks in a bar that is completely disqualifying

When I pay with a credit card, tax is added, which leads to bills like “28.54,” which I then have to be able to read so I can add a tip and sign. When paying with cash, tax is a non issue. So I can just peel off the right amount of bills without having to squint and break out my phone flashlight to help me read. (More than once I’ve gotten annoyed looks from people around me in dark bars when I do this … it’s not a good look)

I have readers but I've not gotten into the habit of bringing them with me everywhere. I was buying some produce and had to enter the little code on the stickers and I had to get my kid to read it to me.

speaking of misreading stuff when you said "readers" my brain went "damn, i've been writing for all this time and i still haven't figured that one out" haha

You can use your phone camera as a magnifier if there are no young eyes around.

I see people doing this all the time. No one has ever pointed and laughed from nearby but I’ve seen people who appear to feel sheepish about it. I say go for it! Sometimes people even take a picture then zoom in on the words or numbers. Whatever works.

I absolutely have been using my phone as reading glasses more often esp in dimly lit places

^ yes this is a good tip and thanks

I highly recommend progressive lenses. If you already wear glasses, they are a no-brainer.

I'm one of those sheepish flashlight users. I have progressive lenses, but they are useless in low light situations.

are all these bars not falling foul of some ADA legislation?

I'm at home by dark, so no problems here.

home from doctor. Next steps: referral to physical therapy for shoulder, referral to dermatology for back, and the colonoscopy people will be in touch. Fifty continues to approach at a breakneck pace.

Also I was so behind on labs they had to take five tubes of blood.