CONTENTS UNDER PRESSUREP: WITH AGE COMES WISDOM (AND WRINKLES)

Editor's note: Mark Bliss, whose column normally runs on Tuesdays, is on vocation. His column will resume next Tuesday. Peggy O'Farrell's column, which normally appears on Mondays, is being published today instead.

It's almost time to put up the new calendar, and with the realization that I've survived another year comes the much larger realization that I'm getting older.

That sounds fairly obvious, and as someone much more famous pointed out, getting older certainly beats the alternative.

It's probably time I thought about growing up, but I like to think I'm at that awkward age: Moisturizer and acne cream share a shelf in my medicine cabinet.

Hey, I'm versatile.

Being grown-up and being old don't necessarily go together. You can be responsible and mature when you're 12, and you can be an aggravating little brat when you're 90. Most of us hope the two will overlap at some point in our lives.

Of course, I'm not old, but I'm at the age where I realize I'll more than likely reach that point, and I can more or less calculate how much longer I have to go to get there.

My friend Jana, a tall, skinny redhead who mastered body piercing when Generation X was in middle school, puts it best: "I've stopped worrying about defying convention. I wanna defy gravity."

Jana, I might add, is exactly two weeks OLDER than I am.

But who's counting?

You realize you're not a kid anymore the first time somebody -- usually working behind a counter at a fast-food restaurant -- calls you "Ma'am" or "Sir," and means it. They're not being polite, and they're not hustling for a tip. That's what they call all old people when the manager (who's also younger than you) is within earshot.

There are other signs that time, and gravity, are catching up.

You know you're getting older when you live through a format change on your favorite radio station, but they're still playing the same music.

A local FM station is playing the same records they played when I was an earnest young undergrad at Southeast, only now they're "rock 'n' roll oldies."

That's depressing.

You know you're getting older when dating someone in their 40s does not mean you have a father fixation, or an Oedipus complex.

You know you're getting older when you're not sure you want to date someone who's older than you and has never been married, either.

You know you're getting older when almost all the former celebrities in the "Whatever Happened To" column of your favorite supermarket tabloid are younger than you.

You know you're getting older when you decide that decaffeinated/caffeine-free beverages are not necessarily un-American.

You know you're getting older when you can quote the exact date your IRA/401K plan starts paying out, and how much you'll get a month.

You know you're getting older when being able to file the E-Z tax return isn't the thrill it used to be.

You know you're getting older when you remember wearing the exact same '70s ripoffs now being sold at the local mall -- only they were originals, and you're really glad you can't wear them anymore. (Did anyone look good in hip huggers? I don't think so.)

You know you're getting older when hitchhikers start looking more like serial killers than sensitive singer/songwriters. Even the women.

You know you're getting older -- and growing up -- when gaining wisdom seems like reasonable compensation for losing the gravity battle.

I should live so long.

Perry O'Farrell is a member of the Southeast Missourian news staff.