Pop-culturally young.

I've mentioned before that I feel like my 32-year-old writer-self who just happened to take a 'short' hiatus from writing.  I have all the enthusiasm I had then, plus a whole bunch of saved up creative energy.  I'm not short of ideas.  I feel determined, as if I'm trying to establish a career.

I think working in a "pop-culture" store for the last 35 years has kept me young in the sense of being in touch with pop-culture, probably more so than most 20 or 30-somethings.  I've been pretty much dealing with younger people for most of my career.  I feel in tune with them, to some extent -- at least in what they're interested in.

It's the same things I'm interested in.

At the same time, my age and experience has given me some perspective and discipline I didn't have before.

But I certainly feel in touch with the pop-culture zeitgeist.  As least as much as I was when I was 32 years old...if not more so.  The things I'm weak on now, I was weak on then.  The things I was strong on then, I'm stronger on now.  Plus a whole lot of knowledge I simply didn't have then.  (Like comic art and writing which I think is perhaps the most creatively open of all the media.)

Maybe I'm kidding myself, but I feel like I'm right in there.

With the added benefit that I have some hard-won, weathered maturity.  That is, I can be more patient, more deliberative in my efforts.  Wait until the books are ready.  Wait for them to take their turn in the carousal.  I have a stronger sense of how long things take and what it takes to get them done.

But that feeling of being in another place, in a world of my own making, that hasn't changed at all.