All the Young Lions
and My Sadly Comical Midlife Crisis

I got some great news last week. A friend who read my Musings of an Old Ad Writer said, “You’re not old, you’re middle aged.”

Woo-hoo! If he’s right, I’m going to live to be 114.

During the years that I was, in fact, middle aged, I was far too busy to have a midlife crisis so I decided to have one now. A midlife crisis, as I understand it, is a ridiculous and ill-advised grasp at the fleeting shadow of one’s former years. So I decided to reclaim my own lost youth by wearing a distinctive brand of canvas shoes that defined me when I was a kid. Zappos was happy to send 5 pairs of wildly inappropriate footwear and I began wearing them everywhere I went.

No one seemed to notice. Then I learned that my “new look” is the standard uniform of silicon valley CEOs.

Crap. I can’t even conjure up a credible mid-life crisis. (I’m continuing to wear the shoes though, because they’re even more comfortable than I had remembered.)