turning 30

I'll be turning 30 on Monday.

3.0. I'm a third version product. Three decades. A trimester, on steroids.

30.

Am I upset? Not at all. Not fixating on the fact that I'm now middle aged -- am I middle aged? 30. It doesn't bother me a bit. No changes. No worries. No sudden hot flashes or stabs of depression, anxiety because I haven't done anything with my life, written the book, climbed the mountain, become the parent, nope. I'm okay with it.

Ooh, look. Baby. Hold on. I'll be right back....

Really, I'm just fine. No biological clock ticking. No mood swings. How far away is menopause? And really, I should be grateful; think of how inane, how shallow, how callow I was in my 20s. The 30s are where you really start to live it up. I'll start developing real character. I'll explore the intellectual depths -- is that supposed to be intellectual heights? I get confused so easily -- of my potential. (No, I think it was supposed to be depths.) I'll discover the richness of the female mystique. I'll get drunk for the first time in my life.

This is the decade I'll discover makeup, and maybe even use it once in a while. I'll learn another language. I'll become a good cook. I'll get my finances in order, pay off all my debts, maybe even save something for retirement and move into an actual home instead of a waystation for my stuff. I'll read more nonfiction, plan ahead, do some good with my life, and maybe buy a pet fish. People will start to take me seriously. No, really. I'll be a grown-up.

Crap. Be right back. This guy wants his baby back, selfish wanker...

...Hah. Showed him. Father, my ass.

There have been some aches and pains lately, I'll admit. Nothing to be concerned about, I'm sure. I injured my foot in Aikido, for instance, so I've spent the last two days waddling about like a constipated penguin, but that's not a symptom of old age. And lately I've woken up with a stiff back, but that's probably because our bed is a little old and sagging in the, well, everywhere. These are not significant in the grand scheme of things. I've accepted the fact that I'm no longer at an age where I can partake of a jalepeno pizza without paying the consequences. Jalepenos don't burn as pleasantly going out as they did going in.

Need a second to wipe that image out of your mind? I know I do. Well, that is to say, I need to wipe it out somewhere lower. Residual burn. Yes yes, okay, I'll stop. Moving on.

About the only good thing about getting ol... turning 30 that is, is that I've been getting gifts. I like getting gifts. My mother bought me five glass chickens in Seattle. The Guy got me a beautiful leather jacket in Canada. And my sister and her boyfriend gave me an awesome blouse from Guatamala. I look hot. In fact, for those of you who like to continue this outstanding tradition of gift-giving to the person of the day, feel free. I even have a wish list on Amazon.

Besides that, however, there's not much joy in the old bean for this particular holiday. (There's that word again. Old.) I feel a sprightly nineteen. I look -- thank God for Japanese genes -- mid or maybe late twenties. I'll probably continue to look mid or maybe late twenties for the next twenty years. Japanese women do that. Irritating, aren't we? And except for the fact that my life is over, hell, everything's just fine.

30.

30 years old.

Sucks, man. SUCKS.

***

Okay. I'm over it now.

***

As the people on my notify list already know, I've taken up Aikido again. It turns out that there's a small dojo four blocks away from my current job at the Purple Monkey Factory. Classes start at 6:30, which is just enough time for me to finish whatever I'm doing at the end of my 9:00 - 6:00 day, answer one last phone call, write one last email, chat with my cubemates, pack up my desk, and go. I could walk there in the same time it takes me to drive there, and but for the fact that I usually go to work wearing shoes that wouldn't stand up to a good Seattle rain, I'd do just that.

See, it turns out that with my cholesterol level and diabetes, I am currently what doctors term a "CTD" (Circling The Drain) or "DWW" (Dead Woman Walking). The doctor's appointment I had regarding my cholesterol took place as follows.

Doctor: "Hello, Yuhri. I'm Dr. X."

Yuhri: "Hello, Dr. X."

Doctor: "I hope I haven't kept you waiting long."

Yuhri: "Not at all. I've actually enjoyed the breeze on my ass."

Doctor: "That's probably because you're wearing the exam robe backwards."

Yuhri: "That could be it, yes."

Doctor: "Why are you wearing an exam robe?"

Yuhri: "Habit."

Doctor: "Did the nurse ask you to put one on?"

Yuhri: "She must have forgotten. I had to dig this one out of that trash bucket there. You really hide these suckers, don't you?"

Doctor: "Mm. So do you know why you're here?"

Yuhri: "I cheated on my math final?"

Doctor: "Actually, your regular doctor has noted that your cholesterol is rather high, and has sent you to me so that we can talk about how to control it a little better."

Yuhri: "Are you sure I didn't cheat on my math final?"

Doctor: "So I have your chart here, and, let me see, your cholesterol level was ... oh. Oh dear."

Yuhri: "How long do I have?"

Doctor: "Well, I wouldn't be buying any goldfish if I were you."

There wasn't a single maximum I hadn't overshot, nor a single minimum that I hadn't missed by a mile. The entire page was ablaze with red numbers. See? my heart was bugling in my chest. I told you! I told you I was sick! It wasn't my imagination! You bitch. Call me a hypochondriac, will you? And here I'd always thought it was skipping beats because it was lazy.

Cumulative cholesterol, 257. For those of you who have never had your cholesterol checked, this is a Bad Number.

Yuhri: "Am I special?"

Doctor: "You're ... have you been injecting any lard intravenously that I should know about?"

Yuhri: "Today?"

We discussed my diet at some length, which was rather irritating because the doctor insisted on delving into detail over subjects that I preferred to gloss over.

Doctor: "And it's made with ... spam?"

Yuhri: "Well, it's an ethnic dish, see. Korean, actually. I'm not Korean, did you know that? I'm Japanese."

Doctor: "And you eat this?"

There was also the rather annoying trait she had of instinctively recognizing every single food I liked and ruthlessly marking it Off Limits.

Yuhri: "But..."

Doctor: "No."

Yuhri: "You just said that chicken was better."

Doctor: "Than regular beef."

Yuhri: "And, I mean, an egg is from a chicken, so by transitive property..."

Doctor: "No."

Yuhri: "It's only five or six a week!"

Doctor: "NO."

Not only did she have a way of marking the foods I liked Untouchable, she also had an instinct for finding the foods I didn't like and adding them in copious quantities to my diet. Vegetables, for instance. I have no particular objection to vegetables. I've met some very nice vegetables in my time. I've just never wanted any of them to become an intimate member of my family, is all.

Doctor: "And then there's fish."

Yuhri: "What about it?"

Doctor: "You should have more fish. Twice a week, at least."

Yuhri: "You just told me I shouldn't buy any goldfish."

Doctor: "To eat, Yuhri."

Yuhri: "Look. Just because I'm Japanese doesn't mean I eat goldfish. I haven't eaten goldfish since.... and anyway, I don't eat dogs, either. That's racist stereotyping, that's what that is."

Doctor: "Could you excuse me for a few minutes? I need to go take some aspirin."

The issue of cheese also appeared to give the doctor much pain. Yellow cheeses, it turned out, were -- in the main -- worse for you than white cheeses. I absorbed that fact silently.

Doctor: "Why are you looking so smug?"

Yuhri: "Nothing."

Doctor: "That's only with the most popular cheeses, mind. Like, American cheese, swiss cheese, as opposed to cheddar, for instance."

Yuhri: "Okay."

Doctor: "You're thinking brie is white, aren't you?"

Yuhri: "How did you--"

Doctor: "You can't eat brie."

Yuhri: "CRAP."

At the end of the appointment, during which all joy was systematically stripped from my life, the doctor appeared to mellow into pity.

Doctor: "If you just use a little bit of common sense and restraint in your diet, you'll be just fine. And you'll need to exercise more, to raise your HDL. Your HDL is good cholesterol, and your body produces it naturally when you exercise. It'll actually cut down and clear some of your LDL cholesterol, the bad cholesterol, and improve your overall cholesterol level."

Yuhri: "Exercise?"

Doctor: "How much do you exercise now?"

Yuhri: "Exercise?"

Doctor: "Okay. Here's what you need to do. You need to exercise."

Yuhri: "How, um, much?"

Doctor: "At least thirty minutes a day. Here's a handout. You should check your heart rate while you exercise...."

Yuhri: "A day? How many days?"

Doctor: "Oh, six or seven should do it."

Yuhri: "Six or seven days? A month?"

Doctor: "Six or seven days a week, Yuhri."

Yuhri: "A ... week?"

Doctor: "Are you okay?"

Yuhri: "How odd. The world sort of ... flickered, for a second there. What were we just talking about?"

Doctor: "Exercise."

Yuhri: "Exercise? You think I should exercise?"

Hence, the Aikido. Three times a week now, I return to a small shed-like building a few blocks away to be thrown, battered, and generally abused for the betterment of my heart. Next week, I'll start going four times a week. In three months, I should be up to six times a week. In exchange, I'm assured, I might live long enough to buy a fish tank. Maybe even some fish to put into it. Live ones.

Hand me that celery stick, would you? I feel the need to suck on something. My thumb's out-of-bounds. My doctor tells me it's red meat.

Posted by yhirata at August 22, 2003 12:24 PM