I was born in 1948 and feel it.  It's disagreeable, but the options are limited.

I'm retired from the following (in this approximate order)
-- Leather-craft, 
-- Equipment operator (backhoes & tractors),
-- State-licensed pest control operator,
-- Safety Technician--ran the safety program at a university physical plant,
-- The Human Race (but not the breathing, eating, and complaining part). 

Anyone can tell I'm a curmudgeon--even those who don't know the word.

Some people think I'm obnoxious and some people think I'm clever. Both are approximately right. 

I have an infernal and incessant desire to talk and write.  A few other people do, too, thank you very much.  

Overweight and Smoking -- I'm overweight, but I always have been.  It's not a middle-aged spread.  Some of my friends got fat when they got older or when they quit smoking; I started out this way and actually lost a little weight when I quit smoking.  A weird payback. Still, there's nothing to celebrate, now we're just all fat. (Correction: I got very skinny after getting diabetes and other complications in 2005.)

Guess I could've quit smoking sooner if I'd known I wouldn't swell up!

I quit smoking in May 1996 (after 30 years of obstinate egocentric stupidity).

I quit because I got mad at the prevaricating, murderous tobacco companies. 

I'm still mad.  Though I'm opposed to the death penalty, I'm in favor of those tobacco CEO's who publicly lied (even in sworn testimony before Congress) being tried and executed. The lies went on too long to say it's "just business."  Not since the days of Slavery has there been a more murderous bunch of opportunistic self-serving heartless bastards and rotten sons of bitches.    

Hot Sauce -- Before I quit smoking, food had to be Very Hot before it was too hot for me. I used to use hot sauce to "add taste".  Now, even store-brand "regular" chili seems hot.  I still like Picante Sauce, but mild, please. I'm a by-God old-age milksop; I can't even eat a banana if it's too late at night!  I'm anything but consistent, though--some midnights I might eat Cheetoes with picante sauce and never suffer a bit.  Bette Davis said that "Ageing isn't for sissies," but she didn't say it wasn't for oddballs.   

I still like women with long hair, though I notice that only young women will tolerate such an inconvenience these days.  Women 30 and older are as bad as I am with their damn practical natures taking over.  I must have a hair fetish.  Still, there's other ones that are worse--I could have 400 pairs of shoes.

Birds -- I've been an avid bird watcher since 2000, mostly in my own backyard and neighborhood and mostly alone.  Birdwatcher groups hop around too much, racing from spot to spot.  I like to stay in one place.  

Cacti -- I used to raise cacti and succulents from seed and from various small plants and cuttings.  I ended up with a greenhouse full of them. I used to know most of the names.

Most of my cacti would bloom because I let them experience normal winter conditions without heating like the books suggested.

I lost all of them one unexpectedly cold winter when I still didn't heat the greenhouse.  I screwed up. 

  
Databases -- I used to do a lot of Foxbase+ (ver. 2.10) programming at work.  It's amazing what stupid things one can have fun with.  Now I use it only to keep track of birds and books here at home.  Every time I have to make a change in my own programming, it takes me 5 or 10 times as long as it used to, and I realize how rusty I am at it. If you don't use it, you lose it. Foxbase has continued to transform, I've heard, and it has even been purchased by the Evil Empire (Microsoft).  Whether it's better or worse, I imagine that I'd find it utterly unrecognizable.  It wouldn't recognize me, either.

In addition to blog and web sites, I also have a history of writing poetry, short stories, work reports and minutes of meetings and work-related newsletters.

Fooshy, Sushi! -- I quit the adventurous part of dining out long before Sushi came to any part of this continent with which I'm ever in contact. I don't even know how to talk about it.  In fact, I won't talk about it.  You shut up, too.  Well, actually, it might be delicious, but I'm not about to pay for a plate of it to find out.  Who's going to pay for it if I want to spit it out on the floor?   

I hate sleeveless shirts and blouses.  Naked people are okay, but I don't like having your armpits carefully framed for me to look at as if they were works of Art.  They're not. Where'd you ever get that idea? 

I love spell-check.  I would use it on a shopping list--not to mention poems, email, this program, etc.  I'm a good speller, but I have a bad case of impatience and butterfingers, so spell-check often saves my donkey.  

I read a lot, in general and at present, but have sometimes gone years without reading anything but instructional books or vocational magazines.

Beethoven,

Mozart,

Bach,

Prokofiev,

Chopin,
Tchaikovsky, 

I don't expose myself to much new music, possibly for fear that I'll find that Rap and Country have been conjoined to form the most obnoxious, insinuating, and culture-destroying music of All Time. But here are 

Tracy Chapman

FAVORITE MOVIES FROM THE PAST

The Ruling Class (with Peter O'Toole)
Casablanca

Close Encounters of The Third Kind
Star Wars (the first 3)

Places In The Heart
The Godfather (parts 1,2)
Little Shop of Horrors (the old B&W one AND the Musical one)
Alien
Aliens
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Little Women (remade X times, I like all of them, but of course the newest one seems most natural)
Tender Mercies 
Joe Versus The Volcano.  I love that thing.