Zero to sixty: I've lived hard and loved hard, and I was supposed to die young. Instead, a dreaded milestone birthday is fast approaching--and I'm wearing an oversized straw hat.

Publication: Texas Monthly

Publication Date: 01-NOV-04

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COPYRIGHT 2004 Texas Monthly, Inc.

On November 1 I'll be sixty years old. Impossible, you say? How the hell do you think I feel? I don't know whether to have a birthday party or a suicide watch. I have received many misguided cards and a few inquiries from paleontologists, but basically all being sixty really means is that you're old enough to sleep alone. In my case, having breezed through my entire adult life in a state of total arrested development, it's especially hard to accept that Annette Funicello has been eclipsed as the most famous former Mouseketeer by Britney Spears. The older and wiser I get, indeed, the less I seem to know. Soon I may become such a font of wisdom and experience that I will know absolutely nothing at all. Some of you, no doubt, believe this stage of evolution has already occurred. This is where seniority comes to the rescue, for the older you...

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