This is the 21st post I’ve written for this new blog, and fingers crossed, the motivation momentum will keep building and I’ll be able to continue writing regularly. Thanks to everyone for your support, and for keeping quiet when a post comes out a bit lumpy.

An account I follow on Twitter is Brimley/Cocoon Line, which celebrates people when they’ve reached the age of 18,530 days, which is how old Wilford Brimley (RIP) was when the movie Cocoon was released, in 1985. You can calculate the day you’ll cross—or did cross—the Brimley/Cocoon Line at their website.

I was 21 when Cocoon came out, and back then, Wilford Brimley was the definition of elderly. Today I learned that I crossed the Brimley/Cocoon Line in September 2014, which means that I’ve been elderly for nearly six years now. So if this ancient curmudgeon can start a blog at my advanced age, there’s hope for all of us.

Here are some other things I’ve learned since I crossed the line:

• Your adult children will always be half-adult and half-child to you, but not to them.
• When it’s your turn to solo over a 12-bar blues, make sure you hit some blue notes.
• Baking sourdough pretzels counts as exercise in a pandemic.
• Remote 1 changes the input, remote 2 controls the Roku, remote 3 turns up the TV, and remote 4 is for DVDs.
• I will never like Brussels sprouts.
• Paying someone to mow your lawn is always the right choice.
• Morning naps on the Metro are the best.
• When people are living in your basement, they can hear every sound you make in the morning.
• Bonne Maman is so much better than Smucker’s.
• I don’t have to beat the car in the next lane when the light turns green.
• Spraying wasps with pesticide all summer only leads to more wasps.
• You don’t have to talk to people you don’t want to talk to.
• Biking 20 miles and sleeping soundly afterward beats biking 50 miles and having horrific leg cramps all night.
• I will always think odd things and sometimes say them out loud, to puzzled silence from my interlocuter(s). ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
• Everyone who isn’t new looks old.
• The more I write, the more I want to write.