I turned 37 two weeks ago. I knew I'd end up at these arbitrary numbers - 25, 30, 35 - and while I could imagine being older, I couldn't imagine being different. One of the hardest things to conceive is the transformation of self. I thought, perhaps, I wouldn't change, that I wouldn't want different things, or feel differently than I did at, say, 27. The shock, now, is that I'm older, and I can write "older" because it really is the weight of the past that makes me who I am.

I mention this because last year I dealt with something quite strange: age discrimination. I can write about it now because it happened nearly a year ago when I was interviewed for a position at an advertising agency in Toronto. It took me awhile to realize what it was that was going on, but it boiled down to people wanting someone like themselves, and that wasn't me. I was, somehow, too old.

They didn't say it outright; I was given a bullshit line about suitability that I knew, immediately, didn't make any sense in the context it was being delivered. But I wasn't used to the euphemisms and excuses that so many people in the world have to deal with because they don't "fit in" to someone's notion of "acceptable." I'm a straight, white male, and that is, in some ways, a privilege.

I had embraced the Internet in 1993 because it seemed like it could drive a revolution, and make for me a fresh start. I always saw myself as a young man exploring a new world. But you can't stop time. I've been online for almost nine years, and I have years of knowledge about how things can work, or why they don't. Sometimes I feel left out because I'm not fresh to the medium and filled with giddy ideas. But I don't want to be young like I was before, and I'm happy to have dumped some of the weight of pretense, much of my famous anger, and many many other things.