Your Increasing Entropy Quizo Update

A friend of mine turns 30 today - happy birthday, Brian - and I was at his birthday party over the weekend and came to a strange realization.

There were, I dunno, maybe 15-20 people at this thing, including a couple married folks who had brought along their kids. It was about as grown-up a party as I've been to in a long time, no wanton stupidity was on offer like fighting with Norwegian shipwrights (my 28th birthday), or people drinking beer out of saucepans with straws (my 25th birthday). Suffice it to say this was not a party in which anyone would end up sleeping in a bathtub (my 30th birthday).

I'm at this party and I'm taking it all in; everyone is just standing/sitting around, talking with each other, eating Brian's Delicious Food - back when Brian and I and a bunch of other guys lived in a house in college the rule of thumb was that Brian's food was always delicious - generally having a pleasant time while the few little kids hung out with each other and did, I dunno, whatever the fuck little kids do at grown-up parties their parents take them to.

At one point I caught a glimpse of said kids and was very violently hit with this wave of memories of MY parents taking me and my sister to THEIR friends' houses for parties when we were young. In fact, a couple people reading this will actually also remember those parties, from both the tall and short perspectives, so to speak. You know who you are.

It's Saturday night and I'm having pleasant conversation - well, as pleasant as I get in conversation, which still tends to involve a lot of shouting - at a party with people who brought their kids.

Then, the realization:

Oh, God, I have turned into my parents.

This knowledge didn't get any easier to take after I considered it for a bit. You may recall I was pretty sanguine about turning 30, but this one hurts. This one really hurts. This shit makes me feel OLD. My friends and I are (for the most part) respectable adults. We have responsibilities beyond (but not without) acquiring video games. We have to plan our social lives more than three hours in advance. We bring our kids to our friends' houses.

I've turned into my parents. Except for, you know, having two kids and a house and something like 5 academic degrees between them, but in all the ways that matter to my warped brain at this particular moment, I've turned into my parents.

My little Zen moment was broken when one of the mothers at the party - Christ I can't believe I can say that about people I know - came into the room saying "Kylie? Kylie?"

I immediately jerked my head up and said, "where? WHERE?!"

My friend Justin said, a look of absolute pity on his face, "not THAT one."

It turns out that she actually was looking for her daughter named Kylie and my hopes were dashed. Hey, stranger things have happened. I once saw Paul McCartney at a rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike; Kylie Minogue at a birthday party in Fox Chase isn't much more unlikely.

And, finally, there is hope that the Patriots' despicable unbeaten season can finally be stopped, since the New York Football giants seem to have acquired some sort of foul magic - voodoo, perhaps - that makes good teams turn to crap when they play the Giants. If you had told me four months ago the NFC Championship would have been between the Packers and the Giants and that, what's worse, the Giants would actually win I (and just about anyone else) would have laughed in your face and said that you were clearly insane, or at the very least retarded. Because, folks, I'll tell you what - the Giants are NOT THAT GOOD. They're not. But somehow they have managed to tap into the arcane energies of the universe to turn other teams that ARE good into total crap. The hope now is that whatever hideous black magic the Patriots have worked is not as strong, or that Tom Brady's Faustian pact expires on February 2.

One cannot live without hope, after all. So, you know, go Giants.

Wow, that hurt more than I thought it would. Think I sprained something...

JLK