getting older and smacked around

I have a friend who is turning 36.� I am 36.� Every year she rejects getting older.� This year she suggested a celebration at Denny's for the Blue Plate special.� I sent her this email in response to her birthday invite:

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"you and this age thing.

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shift your mindset.

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thank god there are no more term papers

be happy there are fewer (if any) pimples

and you don't have to ask your parents for the car keys

or money

or permission to be out

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and be glad you are not in your twenties. what good were we then? we were all promise and no action. well, not entirely true, but let's face it, it was the decade of potential. this, the 30s and afterwards, is the time of realizing that potential and its associated benefits.

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besides, what was age appropriate 10 years ago: shorter skirts (ick), feathered hair (are you kidding me), dancing on tables (who needs to have one's skirt looked up), keg stands (your ceiling is far too expensive to suffer that kind of damage), college football games (you can still go, only now you can afford better seats); and remember the music?� how bad was our music in our twenties?� I mean, Hootie?� you cannot be serious.� Counting Crows?� ok, not so terrible, but really not that great. It had it's time, and now, thankfully, we have moved on.� Embrace this decade.� It has so much more to offer.

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so be the leader you are and think differently.� it's so passe, and so, well, immature to reject your age. �it's something insipid women on Bravo TV shows "The Housewives of..." would do. �and we hate women like that.� they are on the fast track to looking like cat women with their facelifts and over-botoxing (it DOES have its place, I admit).� but in general, you want no part of it.� you don't need it.

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be a leader

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think Demi Moore and Michelle Pfeiffer. �and, yes I will go there, Madonna. and Bono. �he's old, and he rocks. please do not think Mick Jagger. just let that go.

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age is wisdom
age is better shoes

age is not needing to be heard but rather, actually being listened to

age is confidence in your choices

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as your older and, I will say it, wiser friend, you need to listen to me, or, as your elder, I will be offended if you don't. so happy early birthday"