I spent most of my 21st birthday very depressed and very, very sober. To be 21 is to be in a paradoxical, insoluble, and difficult limbo. I have lost my childhood forever, and yet I am not old enough to sigh wisely and dispense advice at the drop of a venerated hat. I'm still learning and making stupid mistakes. When I was little, one of my favorite pastimes was tying a long piece of floss to my finger, and then swallowing it and pulling it out and swallowing it again. On my fourteenth birthday my parents took me to disney world, and I felt like I was walking on air because I got to announce all of the safety warnings that day. On my fifteenth birthday, my father covered my hand with his and told me that I was the most important thing in the world to him. All that I have to hold on to are irrevocable, unattainable memories, and all that I have to look forward to is the slow degeneration of my body, limbs falling off, teeth falling out.
And what is it with old people giving me stupid advice on my 21st birthday? How fond they are of talking about life experience! I want to kick out their remaining teeth and turn off their pacemakers when they do this, because basically all it means is that they spent their youth as skirt-chasing, beer-swilling, illiterate troglodytes, and only in their wrinkled, tired old age have discovered the pleasures of more lofty pastimes. Admittedly, I am probably bitter, because I feel so terribly old. I walk down the drag, tripping over fornicating couples, kicking beer bottles, wondering if morality exists independently of man and what the hell am I doing here? And where can I get some acid in this stupid town? On a lighter note, who rocked it with me at the Stereolab show Tuesday night? Anthony, Shaun and I danced the night away, and I saw my brother and Aaron, but no one else I recognized. Tomorrow I leave for iceland! All I have packed so far is a swimsuit and my toothbrush.
Dear Christian of the future: I love you. Yours very truly, Christian of the past
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