I’ve always looked a bit younger than I am, which was a massive inconvenience from the ages of about 8 to 23. I very clearly recall getting on the school bus, heading for the first day of 3rd Grade, and being told I had to sit in the front seat because that’s where the Kindergarteners went. The bus driver didn’t believe I wasn’t a Kindie, and I was humiliated. Then, there was the time McDonald’s refused to give me a scratch off ticket because you had to be at least 16 to play. I was 20. There was the30+ year old pedobear who asked me out on a date, and finding out I was 19 instead of 14 or 15, was pretty disappointed. (He must have had similar issues, because I’d pegged him for early 20s.) There were countless incidents with my ID, and being pulled over because I looked too young to be driving, too.
Somewhere in my late 20s, I started to appreciate it. It was nice to be mistaken for younger. I could get away with more. In my 30s, when people were telling me I looked to be in my 20s, it was especially nice. And nicer still when people thought B and I were the same age–y’all know I married a younger man, right? I am still hearing that I look younger than 41, but I think I have hit the point at which no matter how much younger than my true age I may look, I still look…mature. The lamb has turned to mutton. No one is ever going to card me for any reason other than policy, or flattery again. Not even myopia is going to bring on that second, suspicious look at my ID.
Eh. No matter. I was never hoping to be anyone’s MILF anyway.
Speaking of lamb…
Ever since reading this story about waste from a meat processing plant being routed into an area river, I’ve been having a real problem getting meat down. I’m already a really picky meat eater, with a hair trigger gag reflex, but I find my throat constricting at the thought of pork these days. When I went grocery shopping today, I couldn’t even bring myself to buy bacon. I love bacon. Loved bacon. Today bacon is making me gag.
I’m not one to harp on about the ethics of meat eating. You don’t gripe at sharks, or alligators, or lions, or chimpanzees for taking advantage of their place on the food chain, and I think it’s silly to complain that humans shouldn’t eat whatever form of protein is available to them (outside of Swiftian proposals, that is.) However, between Upton Sinclair and the meat processing industry, I am being driven nearer and nearer to vegetarianism.
I’ll never be a true vegetarian, and I’ll probably get over my mental block against bacon soon (I hope!), but if the pork farmers of America want me to buy their ham, they really need to work harder to make me forget that it once had hooves, ears, and a snout. I’m gagging again.
The Outside Lane 
living on the river … we eat alot of fish in a lot of different ways along with crawfish, shrimp and crab. But purchase very little meat, not that I do not eat meat but the cost is soaring… being selective and as my wife always says ; “smart shopping”
Which is why I buy my beef from a local farmer. I know where the steer lives, how it lives, and who is responsible for turning it into the lovely lovely steaks I eat. I’ve chatted with the farmer in the butcher shop on the farm while the cows and sheep and ducks happily moo and baaaa and quack just outside…
(Also a member of the “looks young” set. Was totally enjoyable to have my new fitness trainer ask me at the first session how old I was and see her stuttering trying to figure out how exactly I was in my mid(to-late) 30s. I told her sunblock and moisturizers are my friends)