I am "half a hundred".

This blog won’t resonate with most of you… Yet.  

Particularly if you don't look at that thumbnail GIF (here it is again)...

… and immediately say, "Hey!  That's the broad who played Wonder Woman adjusting her one-piece with Barney Miller and Mr. Kotter in the background!"

And I used to care about my broader resonation, but everything has changed. 

Here's why…

I turned 50 on Christmas Day.

And as far back as I can remember, I never felt that a birthday was a “life-changing” event.

Blowing out the candles on my 10th birthday and having an uncle ask, “How’s it feel to be a double-digit midget, Mickey?”

It felt no different, Uncle T. 

When I turned 13, my mom asked, “Are you happy to finally be a teenager?”

I guess, Mom, but it was really no big deal. 

My roommates and I in college got blackout drunk for my 21st, but we also got blackout drunk for Election Day… And Arbor Day… And Columbus Day (back when that was a thing).

Turning 30 didn’t phase me and becoming 40 felt no different than 38 or 39. 

But 50 slaps a little different. 

Maybe it’s all in my head, but turning 50 SUUUUUUUUCKS… Everything hurts and nothing works as it should.  

And… The worst part… I am a LOT closer to death than I am to being born. 

That’s a tough sentence to write. 

Maybe I’ll make it to 80, so I couldn’t write that line with absolute certainty when I turned 40.  However, none of us are making it to 100, so this past birthday has really sent home the fact that I am squarely on the back nine of life… And I simply don’t like it. 

So, yes, Uncle T, Mom, and College roommates. Yes… Finally… This one is different. 

As a matter of fact, I scheduled this blog to hit on Friday morning at 9 AM… So if you are reading this anytime immediately after it hit, then know I am currently getting a CT scan for coronary calcium.

How sexy is that?

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When I worked on the floor, the word “fifteen” and the word “fifty” sounded so similar in a loud trading situation that everyone had to change their language around the numbers whenever they were used. 

If you bought or sold 15 shares of anything, you would verbalize it by saying, “You bought fifteen, one-five, shares.”

Conversely, if you traded 50 of anything, you would say, “I bought fifty, half a hundred, shares.”

Fifteen, one five. or Fifty, half a hundred.

I still use it to this day… “How much does that t-shirt cost?”

“Fifteen, one five, bucks.”

But it’s never been as painful to use as when someone asked me, “How old are you, Large?”

And although I would never be mistaken for a teenager, I still felt compelled to say, “I am turning fifty, half a hundred.”

Ouch!

So what am I gonna do about it?

Well, assuming today's tests come back 'positively negative', I suppose ideally I will start a diet and exercise regimen that will hopefully downgrade me from “morbidly obese” to perhaps just “obese”.  But realistically I am going to do just enough that I get back to a point where I fit comfortably under a standard umbrella. 

I recorded the Twisted History of Betty White and John Madden this week… And perhaps the Betty White talk is overdone at this point, but again, I don’t care.  Plus, I think there is a tremendous amount of perspective to be gleaned from the century she spent floating around on this mortal coil… Betty came into this world at the tail-end of a Spanish influenza epidemic that killed 50 million people AND she did it at the very beginning of prohibition. 

A cunt-hair shy of 100 years later, she left this terrible world in the middle of yet another global pandemic but at least one where it was legal to smoke weed in order to cope. 

My half-century wasn’t nearly as interesting as Ole Whitey’s, but I’ve also seen some shit… And for the first time, man, am I hoping I get to experience a whole lot more. 

And for those youngsters who don’t understand why I wrote this or enjoy its content, then know… I just don’t give a fuck.  And pretty soon (hopefully) you’ll get to the age where you won’t either. 

Take a report. 

-Large

By the way… Salma Hayek turns 56 this year…

She's also worth over $200 million and her husband is worth over $7 billion… So fuck her.

TAR.

-L