Life: 50% done, now what?

There's a naked blonde on my couch, playing stuff like World of Warcraft and Call of Duty on her laptop. She has to show her ID whenever she buys liquor for us. Figures - she's six years younger than I am. Mind you, the fact she's naked has nothing to do with us being sex-crazed pervs in any way. It just turns out that not wearing any clothes means you don't have to wash them, either, saving lots of time and money. Even if that means having to endure the occasional cheering crowd of school boys in front of the living room window.

Did I ever mention I'm getting paid to play video games? And at this moment, I'm growing manly, Aragorn-esque stubbles on my face. And I'm about to eat a monstrosity composed of roast chicken, peppers, bacon and a metric shitload of hot, melting, golden cheese. Also, I'm a phantom. See, right now my blog is tricking your subconscious into believing I'm a cartoon cat. There used to be a time where people on the 'net thought I was female. Funny thing is, some random, blurry Facebook images aside, nobody has ever seen me or met me in person - not even the people I work for.

So yeah... Life is pretty sweet.

But as my 30th birthday draws near, I have to face the facts: This is probably as good as it's ever gonna get.
Let's remain realistic here: Given my love for bacon, gratinating edible things, avoiding all forms of physical exercise and getting incredibly pissed off at pretty much everything for no good reason, I'll be insanely lucky to make it past 50. Life is halfway over and while it isn't crappy enough to develop a major midlife crisis, there are a few things I'm gonna have to accept will never happen.

If Secret of Mana, Karate Kid or Harry Potter (bleh!) teach us one thing, it's that you'll start doing life-changing, heroic stuff that makes you famous long before there's any grass on the field of play. At age 30, it's not very likely I'll be pulling an awful lot of enchanted swords from hidden rocks, get the hang of competitive martial arts or start waving a magic stick at stuff or whatever it is Harry Potter does. And while I'm still wiping the floor with most annoying 12 year olds in fast-paced action games on the internet, I'm starting to lose hope that some intelligent alien life form is watching my efforts on Wing Commander, planning to abduct me to make me the leader of their elite space fleet in order to save the galaxy from some unknown evil threat or another.

I have a pleasant, sometimes funny voice with a sexy accent, so there's still a chance that one day I'll get to voice a videogame or cartoon character. I'd like that. Though I'll probably never be popular enough to get a video game featuring me as the main character. Screw you, Jackie Chan, and your stupid Jackie Chan's Action Kung Fu!

Also, I'll probably never become a famous Ghost Buster, thanks to those assholes. And thanks to Youtube, I won't live to impress anybody by being an okay singer, a passable drummer or a guy, who bites the caps off of beer bottles with his bare teeth. The internet is full of that crap and they're all better at it than I will ever be. I am, however, the guy who hangs out with the chick, who pees like a dude. If we're ever gonna have a daughter together, she might even pass on her little party trick. I can totally see myself coming home on a lovely summer day with a ton of meat for the already fired up barbecue grill, walking in on Claire Jr. and her mommy standing in the backyard, peeing all over the wooden fencing. Happy days.

So... what is next, I wonder? What's the next step after your life has turned into an R-rated sitcom and you're coming to terms with the fact you're starting to get a little old and therefore less and less likely to blow up the Death Star? I have no fucking clue. Maybe standup comedy. "Whenever I tell people I'm from Germany, they say it's cool and they forgive me." Hoo boy.

Maybe I'll give it another ten years, wait for nature to make me share hairstyles with Patrick Stewart, lose a couple teeth and gain a few more pounds and then I'll just go through a proper midlife-crisis like everybody else. And then I'll go right back to paying my bills, worrying about insurance, tax forms and living like a naturist to save money on washing powder. Yeah, right!

-Cat