Sunday, July 4, 2010

Yes, we're gonna have a party, party.

A slow crawl of realization has been inching its way towards and through the back of my mind that has now become a freight train of full-on panic consuming my every thought.  What I'm referring to, dear reader, is the arrival of my thirtieth birthday (I spelled out the word because looking at the actual number is much too frightening right now).


Birthdays themselves have never held any real significance to me, either in terms of an excuse to have a party (social events in general never carried much allure to me anyway), as a timeline to measure one's success or accomplishments, or--more adolescently--as a countdown to certain age milestones (16, 18, 21, etc.).  If anything, I did look forward to my 25th birthday because of the drop in my car insurance.

But, 30 (there, I wrote it) hovers over me in a way different than any--albeit--random age has previously.  Why is that the case?  It's difficult to tell.  Part of what I'll be attempting to do here over the next month is work that out.  There is a BBC podcast called "A History of the World in 100 Objects" that, as the title would lead you to suspect, tells the history of humanity through 100 physical objects.  Think of this as "A History of Jason in 30 Cultural Artifacts (in 30 days)".  Rolls off the tongue, no?

So for each of the next 30 days (which will end on my birthday) I will try to post something new.  Most, I would imagine, are going to be films.  But music and television, books and essays will also potentially make an appearance.  Part of why I'm doing this, certainly, is to hash out whatever psychic weight is pounding on me as I reach this moment.  Another is to sort of figure out how I got here.  Yet another would be to selfishly get myself writing again.  And, perhaps, if I force myself to write on something--anything--it will get me to post more on here in general.

Which I know you guys are all hoping for.

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