2.11.19

Amazon's Alexa-thing is 5 Years Old, Smarter Than Me, and I Don't Care


I seem to be getting older, too.  It's weird.

I'm sorry, some folks might not like that.

To avoid offending anyone, I should rephrase:

"As my chrono-biological advancement process progresses, I have been noticing some uniquely odd moments."

Much better.

I'm concerned about these "odd moments" because it seems as though I am experiencing a more rapidly increasing version of an already rapid process.  I'm pretty sure that my internal clock-system-thing is developing a method for itself to capture these moments because it thinks I'm not paying attention.   It's catching the odd moments like a cellphone-camera and sending mental image-alerts to smash into my consciousness (the part that I pay attention to, anyway) and say things like "Hey!  Knock it off, you're old."  This makes it very hard to deny the fact that I am, indeed, "getting older."

I've been pretty good at that -- denying it -- until lately.

So what's the big deal, right?  Anybody with half a brain realizes that time doesn't stop and neither does the aging process.  While some of us might know how to slow it down, it still doesn't stop (that I know of).  And this means that we're all aging whether we bother to notice, or choose to acknowledge it, or to accept it, or not.  "Duh," right?

Well, no.  It's not that simple.  As I mentioned, it's not something everyone likes to acknowledge.   Getting older (so some say) sucks.  And if we don't acknowledge something, we very likely just think and believe it's not happening.   It's a trick.  That's how I came to believe that I'm *not* getting old.

It's simple:  don't accept it.   It's a psychotic, sociopath kinda thing.  "I don't see it, so it's not there."  However, the longer we put off accepting something like this whole aging thing, the more difficult it will be with when our internal control systems begin to throw these yawping signals in our faces.


I've been keeping a list of these signals when they pop up.  Here are fifteen of them:
  1. Keeping a list of things to keep track of things that make me feel like I'm getting older.  Only old people do that.
  2. I have also been noticing that, on any given day, my temperament is directly related to which pair of shoes I choose to put on in the morning. 
  3. All the Navy Captains and most of the Admirals are younger then I am.  When did *that* happen?
  4. I need to be getting ready for bed by 6pm and preferably horizontal in bed by 7.  If I'm not, I feel like I've been shorted on sleep when I wake up.
  5. I have *never* heard of *any* of the bands, singers, or people in the Top 10 or Top 40 of anything.  I have retreated to NetFlix or AmazonPrime streaming stuff on TV and listening almost entirely to music from the 60s and 70s.  I don't watch TV anymore.  Commercials make me talk back to the TV and only crazy old people talk to the TV.
  6. Gray hair.  I was fortunate enough to not have any until recently ... but now they're sneakin' in.
  7. Hair (in general) that is showing up where there wasn't any before.  Like in my nose.  What's up with that?  What's next?  My *ears?*
  8. I like it (and sometimes smile) when a cashier asks "May I see some ID?"  This may be a new law or just a trending practice in local binnesses (when selling adult beverages), but it's still cool.
  9. Feeling the need to take naps.  I only used to need a nap at the end of the day to rest up for the next day.
  10. Prices of everything are increasing and it pisses me off.  I'm almost certain there's a collective conspiracy by all of the companies and corporations to raise their prices faster than my annual income increases.  If prices are increasing, so should my paycheck, dammit.
  11. It *really* pisses me off when they move stuff in the supermarket or pharmacy in some misguided attempt to make you see *other* stuff that you won't be buying anyway.  It's dumb.
  12. I catch myself telling other people how old I am (like I am now).  I recently realized that the only other people who do that a lot are 4-year-olds.
  13. I hear a growing number of people talking about how old *they* are and then fondly remembering things from the 80s like 'Disco,' 'Donna Summer,' and other stuff that I didn't like back then, either.
  14. More and more friends, family members, and celebs are dying. And they're younger than me.
  15. And lastly, at least for now anyway, I am oh so very tired of being told (by anyone and everyone everywhere) who to admire and who to look up to.  People to look up to and respect as role models are hard to find and I kind of look at it like an Easter Egg Hunt.

    And I like finding the Golden Eggs by myself.  There are too many yolks in the world.

JM(M)