I turn 28 tomorrow. This really isn’t a big deal on the surface, but with any birthday I think you get to thinking about certain things and thus, in the great spirit of Digg and the like, I present to you:

The Top 10 Things a Geek Thinks About When He Turns 28

1. I am significantly more physically fit than I was at 18, which I find ironic. I also weigh less. Doubly ironic.
2. Amy just turned 29, and now that we’re edging toward 30, we are seriously discussing when the time is “right” to have kids. I don’t think any time is “right” per se, but I think we are ready, whenever that time is.
3. High school seems like a long, long time ago. The scary thing is: my undergraduate and graduate years are starting to feel the same.
4. When I was a little kid, maybe 8 or 9, I used to wonder what I’d look like as an “adult” (adult in this case being my late 20’s). I don’t know how accurate I was, but I like to think I was precognitive 20 years ago.
5. Having a mortgage, two pugs, a cat and a wife makes you feel more “adult” than age ever will
6. Why has Douglas Coupland written two books with a character named “Ethan” that are very different in situ, but oddly similar to myself? (I speak of Microserfs and JPod) In Microserfs’ case, these similarities are much more apparent now than they were even two years back.
7. Its sad that as you age, things around you seem to age that much faster. This especially applies to animals that you grew up with. And people.
8. I’m starting to feel a lot less detached from people because of age. I’m no longer the young one among a sea of adults, but moving toward the MOR, which is very different indeed from what I’m used to.
9. As we all get older, the age difference between my sibling (and sibling-in-law and pseudo-sibling, my uncle, five years my senior) starts to mean exponentially less.
10. My favorite band in the world just celebrated their 27th anniversary. Their lead singer turned 28 when I was just getting into the band. This somehow makes me feel old, but not as old as Michael Stipe must feel sometimes.

I think in the end, age doesn’t mean so much as what you make of the years you are given. Each day ultimately is closer to your end, and for me, the most depressing thing about life is the way that each can slip away unless you focus on each minute of it.

I turn 28 tomorrow, but does it really mean much? At 6:19PM on April 10, 1979, I was born unto this world. On April 10, 2007, I’ll go out to dinner with my wife, raise up a glass and toast to the years since, the years ahead and maybe in that little second of what amounts to a little day, find something to drive me toward the next minute. And next minute. And the next, etc.