Melancoly Baby...Updated

During this downtime, I've been listening to college radio as I go about the stuff formerly known as "Saturday-time-suck".
You know, the things you don't have time to do during the week, so it sucks up half or more of your precious weekend - the dry cleaners; the dump; Target; the Post Office.
Today, since both Target and the P.O. did not have a box big enough for what I was mailing, I had to go to my old workplace for a box and then back to the P.O. Good thing I have time on my hands!

Back to the radio.
Sometimes I can't stomach anymore NPR. The BBC is on when I go to sleep and WUNC when I wake up, so I get a bad news sandwich (unemployment is 10% in the state of NC; coffee is bad; calcium is bad; hormone replacement therapy is bad - in fact, all the things you've been doing for the past 50+ years is bad; and hey, good morning!).

We have a lot of amazing local groups here in the Piedmont - Trailer Bride, Squirrel Nut Zippers, The Rosebuds, Carolina Chocolate Drops, to name just a few.

There's just one downside - college radio makes me sad.

It's so youthful - angry and longing, goofy and smart. And sometimes, when I'm listening, it just hits me - I'm middle aged. What the hell happened?! I was that age - wasn't it just yesterday? Not very long ago at any rate.

Today in Target I stood in line behind an older woman. A young woman was in front of her, The older woman was buying jello pudding mix and a small bag of flour. Her back was humped and she couldn't hold her head up. But once, she had been just like the young, straight woman in front of her, full of dreams and  future.

Time just slips by. There goes another second, another minute, another hour. Whenever I see something wonderful, like the way the light was coming through the clouds yesterday evening, I wonder if I'll remember that next year on Sept. 22. Will I even remember it tomorrow?

Then I wonder if in twenty years I will be like my mother. Will I remember writing this blog? Remember my friends? My family?

Sigh.
Play on college radio. Even though you make me sad.
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I guess what I should have expounded on was that it's not just college radio - it's fall.
For even though fall is my favorite season because the weather is [usually!] cooler, fall also brings a new crop of bright, glossy, perky young people into town. No matter where I go, there's a gaggle of them. Mocking my maturity, my crone self, with their smooth, shiny skin and slender - everything. They're so...marketable.
They have no idea that in 20-30 years they will be me.
Don't worry, I'll be used to being invisible again in a week or two.
.