{"id":80245,"date":"2015-11-25T15:26:34","date_gmt":"2015-11-25T23:26:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=80245"},"modified":"2015-11-25T16:15:56","modified_gmt":"2015-11-26T00:15:56","slug":"in-six-months-i-turn-50","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=80245","title":{"rendered":"In Six Months, I Turn 50"},"content":{"rendered":"

Feeling sentimental, I looked at my blog posts from my 40th birthday<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\nCathy Seipp writes<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Not long ago I was so pleased to find myself linked in the same sentence with Mark Steyn<\/a> — in John Birmingham’s Sydney Morning Herald article<\/a> about witty righties and humorless lefties — that I immediately ordered Birmingham’s<\/a>out-of-print book, “How to Be a Man.”<\/a> I figured this would be the perfect 40th birthday present for Luke Ford<\/a>, especially because of the Australian connection. And indeed it was, at least in my opinion. Luke isn’t very gracious about presents, but I assume he’ll at least learn something from it. It’s a good book, as of course I read it first. (Along with Maia<\/a> and Grandpa, who were both quite glued to it.)<\/p>\n

…Someone else gave Luke some AMC movie passes, so Monday he took me and Maia to see “United 93,” which we all liked very much, although Maia thought it was too sad and Luke had to march around my backyard afterward for a good 20 minutes, demanding that we all imagine him saying manly things like “Scramble those jets” and “I want action, not answers” and (of course) “Let’s roll.” He only stopped when my Dad finally came
\noutside and distracted him with a dirty joke. <\/p>\n

One good thing about Luke: He’s an appreciative audience and when he laughs, he laughs so long and loud you think his sides actually might split. He also cackled happily for quite a while at the pre-movie commercial about some bed-wetting product. <\/p>\n

Luke’s “let’s roll” dialogue fantasies were at least a relief from his conversation on the way to the movie, which consisted almost entirely of him saying things like, “Do you think I’m exploitative of women?” “Am I self-centered and narcisstic?” “People say I’m manipulative — am I?” <\/p>\n

He wouldn’t let me change the subject, and just saying “yes, yes, yes” gets boring after a while, so eventually I reminded him that, you know, some women charge 95 cents a minute for these kinds of conversations.\n <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

From My 40th Birthday Party Thrown By Holly Randall<\/p>\n

Crystal,
\n Luke<\/a> Crystal,
\n Luke<\/a> Crystal,
\n Luke<\/a> Lexxi,
\n Luke<\/a> Lexxi,
\n Luke, Rich<\/a> Lexxi,
\n Luke, Rich<\/a> Lexxi,
\n Luke<\/a> Holly,
\n Derrick<\/a> Luke<\/a>
\n Derrick,
\n Lexxi, Luke<\/a> Luke,
\n Crissy<\/a>
\n Luke<\/a> <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

My writing seems more spontaneous and creative ten years ago. It crackles and shocks and some of it embarrasses me. <\/p>\n

I didn’t own a computer when I turned 30, but a year before that, I had a camera and produced interviews like this:<\/p>\n