I’m a New Yorker, and we’re cool with celebrities and don’t bother them as they go on about their days.

But today, I saw Michael Stipe and I had to say something—I caught his eye and said “Thank you for the music.” He was very kind and said “Thank you, there’s more coming!”

it was a peak Gen-X moment for me!!

My brother just told that someone that we grew up with is being unplugged tomorrow. Several years ago she used Cologaurd instead of doing a full colonoscopy. The test came back negative and a year later she was diagnosed with stage three colon cancer. She was treated and it went into remission. A year ago the cancer reappeared and she never recovered about six weeks ago she was put on a ventilator and multiple machines to keep her alive.

Tomorrow the machines are scheduled to be turned off.

She was only 55 with 2 adult children and a husband of 20 years.

As I told my brother, in the past it was our uncle's, aunt's and grand parents. Now it seems that it's our peers that are starting to die. Man this adulting is hard.

I just got off the phone with my friend, her husband, I'm going to be there for him afterwards. I was there for him while we were growing up, I'll be there for this next part of our journey.

This is just a bit of a vent and a PSA. Reach out to your friends and let them know what they mean to you. Our days with each other are numbered. You never know when will be the last time you see them.

Alex Borstein as Ms. Swan in Mad TV.

So today I was at work, looked in a mirror and my bangs were messed up so I pulled out a hair pin, twisted my bangs… as my wrist twisted them I felt a pop and horrible pain in my hand and wrist. Almost immediately a bruise starts to appear like I sprained it or something. Like wtf. Did I really just sprain my wrist pulling my bangs back?! This is a fun age, I’m having a good time.

The whole band once randomly showed up at our little school and played some basketball then performed a mini concert during the day in our high school gym. I guess they were touring and possibly playing in the bigger actual town close to ours. I don’t remember what year it was but I remember them playing Stray Cat Strut front of us students and the teachers.

Photo apparently from a community college in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.

Noticed it while pumping regular and realized my daughter has never seen anyone write a check in the wild. Tried to explain float time, balancing the checkbook, the little register you'd get with your name printed on it. The perforated edges. How you'd stand at the grocery store writing one out while people sighed behind you. She wanted to know why you wouldn't just use the card. Couldn't explain the floating feeling of payday being Wednesday and the mortgage due Friday and that thin paper bridge between them. The sign's sun-faded now, red letters turned pink. Still makes me slow down when I walk past it.

Does anyone else feel like nostalgia is basically a drug we’re all openly addicted to?

I mean, I get it. The past feels incredibly safe because we already know how it ends. The present is chaotic and exhausting, so it’s so easy to light up and retreat into our mental sanctuary. We throw on an Slippery When Wet (don't pretend you don't) or OK Computer, or hear the opening theme to Legend of Zelda, or mentally tear up when Optimus buys the farm (also I'm a guy so this is my own lived experience here), and wrap ourselves up in a warm, fuzzy blanket of "the good old days."

But it's a trap. We’re comparing our messy, complicated, possibly pre-apocalyptic present to a heavily edited highlight reel of the past. We remember the absolute magic of cruising the strip on a Friday night or jamming to some Crue with our buddies in the garage, but our brains conveniently edit out the crushing boredom, the unrequited love/lust, and the complete lack of money.

When we smoke too much of this nostalgia drug, it actually ruins our appetite for anything new. It sets an impossibly high, deeply unfair standard. When we encounter new music, new art, or even new ways of thinking, it feels jarring. It takes effort to process. So instead of leaning into that friction and discovering something amazing, we just shrug, say, "Music today sucks," and retreat right back to our perfectly curated '90s playlists.

That’s exactly how our tastes freeze in time. We trade the thrill of discovery for the stale guarantee of comfort. We end up living in a museum of our own making.

Nostalgia is a fantastic place to visit, but it’s a terrible place to live permanently. If we spend all our energy mourning a golden age that wasn't actually as perfect as we remember, we miss out on what’s happening right in front of us.

It's weird. It's different. It's upsetting. It takes effort and energy that frankly sometimes feels pointless to expend. But I think it's still worth it to try. Just a little. Go cold turkey for a few weeks. See how it feels.

I know movies like Breakfast Club, Heathers, etc. are readily associated with Gen X (& they’re great movies),
but I want to take a second to give some love to Lake Placid.

Am I the only one who can watch that movie over & over & still be entertained? The entire cast is perfect & it’s still funny all these years later.

Couldn’t figure why I was getting a headache the last couple of days. Finally pinned it down to the missing nose guard stabbing a nerve or something.

Remember this flash in the pan?

Just for Men or one of the others. Do you think it makes you look younger? And ladies, does it obviously dyed?

This is what’s left of my first computer. I’m still looking for the computer itself. Even by today’s standards, it had a great keyboard.

Socialist Bulgaria, 1987 or 1988. I got a Commodore 116. Almost nobody had heard of it. It looked like the little brother of the C64, but it was not the same thing.

I plugged it into our Soviet TV, a Rubin 714. The TV was SECAM, the computer was PAL. So the picture was black and white.

Games? The kids around me had C64 tapes. They did not work on mine. Not one.

So I did what every kid with a computer did back then. I typed in programs from a magazine called “Computer for You”. The listings were for the Pravetz, the Bulgarian Apple clone. I typed them anyway, for hours.

Then I pressed RUN.

?SYNTAX ERROR

Every time. Different program, same answer. Matter it did not. Next month I bought the magazine again and typed again.

Fellow Gen Xers, what was your first computer? And did anything you typed in from a magazine ever actually work?

Every elderly person I know takes meds for various reasons. Have any of you already started taking daily meds yet? Blood pressure, heart meds etc?

I sent my first email complaint to a restaurant. I truly feel old.

Usually if there's an issue I will either say something to the waitstaff or decide it's not worth it. Outside of travel we only eat out on occasions because there's not much around where we live and I rarely feel the ever-increasing cost is worth it.

Last week we did a dinner train ride that we've done before and always enjoyed. There were a few issues this time around. Because of the venue corrections weren't really possible and we had already prepaid. I sent a very heartfelt email to the management explaining what went wrong and how much we'd always enjoyed it, how great the staff was, etc. Got a one-line response back and just could feel the implied eye roll there, like here's an old lady with nothing better to do than complain.

Anyway, no satisfaction achieved.

One aspect of growing older that I hope I can avoid is having to give up some of my favorite foods. What delicious foods have you had to give up?

bro looking back at the 80s makes u realize how easily everyone in society can just completely lose their minds at the exact same time 💀

​like picture being an adult back then and genuinely walking around believing there was some massive underground cult of baby eating Satanists hiding right beneath ur suburban daycare center or local high school. daytime tv was packed with wild stories. parents were burning heavy metal records and throwing away D&D books. cops were building entire cases on absolute nonsense fed to them by sketchy therapists. turns out it was all one giant mass hysteria fueled by pure panic and bad media. no actual cults. just a whole country scaring the shit out of itself over fake news before the internet even existed.

My partner has a comic from '78 where this is the back cover page. They say they are always curious if anyone actually did this and then got any "super prizes"? I told them I would float the question here!

Anyone else have a profound crush on Belinda Carlisle? Just me?

It was one of those shows like Hawaill Five-O that were there in the background with the familiar theme song but the storyline was beyond. Yesterday I decided to start watching to see what it was about anyway and I think it holds up pretty good, mostly thanks to James Garner's acting and some good car chases. When Rockford spoke, it sounded kind of familiar. Then I figured it out. His tone and cadence sound like House, or vice-versa really.

While watching I did the Wikipedia dive like I usually do during old shows. Reading about Garner they mentioned his Polaroid commercials. I had totally forgotten about those.

I tried Petticoat Junction earlier but after three episodes I just can't. Any other old shows you think still hold up?

Who had a pair? I rocked the black parachute pants and I wish I had a picture of that.

I don’t want to come across as unkind or uncaring. My parents divorced when I was 5 and I’m an only child. My
Mom passed in 2008. We had been estranged for a while due to her drinking and some other issues. She died without life insurance or a will, so everything fell on me. I wanted to clean out her condo to try and salvage sentimental items and while I was able to preserve some photos, everything in my bedroom could not be saved. Her sister helped me clean things out, and we have always been close. She saw what was left behind. Unfortunately, she passed this week and while she had been in a serious relationship for more than 25 years, they never married. She still lived in my grandparents house and discouraged me from visiting the past 10 years because it had become so “cluttered.” I live out of state, and while I’m extremely grateful to have a support system in place when I travel back to handle everything, I am still so overwhelmed. I somewhat know what I’m walking into, but also that it will likely be worse than what I anticipated. I’m not trying to “get rich” off of anything. There are some sentimental family items I hope to locate. It’s just bringing up so much anxiety facing it all again.

If you know... you know

(can't doing that IYKYK shit)