We talk about getting old. Kisstopher insists that because she’s 50 and Chad is only 44, they’re in different generations. Lots of talk about gray hair, and some about Japanese working and aging culture.

Transcript

K: So, lately I’ve been thinking a about aging because we’re doing this exciting new project called The Writers’ Triangle, which is a new podcast about writing. And it’s me, you, and our son, Rasta. And I feel like they get the benefit of hearing three generations discussing writing whereas you feel like they get two. So, explain and justify how you and I are in the same generation, please, because I am a woman in her fifties. I am a woman of a certain age. And you are a young man barely in his forties. And so, for me, that puts us in different generations. I am almost, like… if you round, now you could round my age to 100. (laughs)

C: (laughs) I don’t know what to say to that. Yeah, I could round

K: It was stunning. What I just said was stunning. It was so beautiful. It was stunningly beautiful.

C: Yes.

K: I literally stunned you with the brilliance of my logic.

C: You did.

K: Exactly.

C: If we round your age to 100, we have to round my age to zero because we’re rounding to the nearest hundred.

K: Yes. 

C: And then we’re like five generations apart.

K: So why don’t you feel like you and I are in different generations? I feel like, when it comes to our educational paths and all of that, I don’t know. It feels like- I just feel like I’m in a different generation than you. I really do.

C: So when it comes to our educational paths…

K: Yeah.

C: We met at college. 

K: (laughs) But that was not my first go-round.

C: It wasn’t mine either. 

K: Okay, but I think that was like my third or fourth go-round. I don’t remember exactly which. Listen to the old episodes where we talk about education if you want to know how many times I went to college. But- I can’t think about it right now. Seriously, my mind is going blank. I think I went to college five times, but I’m not sure. 

C: Okay, I’m starting to feel more and more like you are a different generation. You just, senility is starting to set in.

K: Yes, I do have signs of aging that you don’t have. Although you are way more gray than I am. And I have gray envy. I’m just going to put it out there because you’re almost completely graybeard. And I have a few strands of gray, like my temples aren’t even silver, although I am really happy with the color of my gray. Another reason- ooo, another reason I’m glad I don’t smoke anymore.

C: I thought that when you said, “I’m happy with the color of it,” I thought “because they’re silver, not yellow.”

K: Yeah, so I’m really happy that my smoking and living in a smoky environment hasn’t stained my gray with nicotine. So I’m really happy with that. And then I don’t even know if that’s true, but I have seen people with like yellow fingers from nicotine and yellow fingernails and yellow teeth. So I just assume that has to stain gray hair as well.

C: Well, and you see it on paint on walls in places that people smoked, so.

K: Yes, that is so gross.

C: So yeah, I would assume that it would stain hair.

K: Yeah, me too. And so I’m really really happy. Ooh, the other day, I was watching YouTube. I have one of my favorite YouTube channels, man I wish I could give her a shoutout. I can’t remember the name of the YouTube channel. But she had a hot press- so her flat iron broke, and she got a new flat iron and it discolored her gray.

C: Mmm.

K: I felt so bad for her because she had really beautiful, silver gray, and she had to end up dying her hair because it turned it yellow. So for all the beautiful ladies rocking their natural gray,