It was cold last Tuesday night. Not as cold as it would be later in the week, but pretty cold. Living in New Mexico tends to make one think anything colder than forty degrees is like walking into a huge meat freezer where every wall is so cold your hand would stick to it and take away your skin. But The Strokes were in town, and I'd scored free tickets. And it was the preamble to my birthday, the lead up to turning 30. Or, as some younger friends put it, the first big step to being a dirty old man.

I had an extra ticket and was scanning the hangers on outside the theater to see if anyone needed a miracle when a guy wearing an orange pullover asked tentatively, "Does anyone have extra tickets?" I pulled one out, handed it to him. "Seriously?" he asked. I said yeah and walked into the theater. Sometimes I'm still too cool for school.

The Strokes are too cool for school these days. Young New York hipsters who almost canceled their sold out Albuquerque show because they didn't feel so hot. Y'know, they were hung over. So they played to a packed house that really wanted to love them. Like with a big "L." But with the same aplomb I used to sneak out of strange apartments before the sun rose, The Strokes shrugged their shoulders and mumbled, "Yeah, everyone loves us. What else is new?"

The youth are wasting their youth. Y'know, just like the rest of us did when we were the youth. And while I am known to be youthful, I'll never be The Youth again. So at least I won't be wasting it again.

The actual birthday was Friday. I didn't have a ton of work to do that day, so it was mostly filled with the social side of work. Y'know, sitting around bullshitting with various co-workers. Lunch was a raucous affair, comprising of about ninety percent of the available staff from the office--or fifteen people. We took a two-hour lunch (this would be one of the famed "long lunches"), and when I got back I had two things to do, one of which was serve cake to everyone.

I went out for early dinner/drinks with my roommate, but forgot to take my ID. I must be looking old 'cause I didn't get carded. And I am getting old because I was tired after this. I needed a bit of rest, a break from celebrating. But after Monty Python's The Meaning of Life was over, I was ready to rev up again. Prove I'm not that old. I can stay out late, I can still close the bar.

Loud music from The South of No North and Pilot To Bombardier accompanied the Murphy's pints. A co-worker and her boyfriend (who scored my friends and I Strokes tickets) joined us, and we traded shots (me whiskey, she tequila).

After they left, I found myself vaguely aware of being in a conversation with a circle of people. One girl was saying that she was kissing everyone, and then, to prove her point, kissed a friend of hers. Now, I don't know if it was the whiskey or the sight of two girls kissing, but I was suddenly, if only slightly, awake again. A mutual friend suggested that she kiss me since I'd just turned 30.

One friend who had turned 30 in November recently told me that, while he didn't feel different, the reaction of girls in their early 20s to someone in their 30s was usually one of wide-eyed fear. 30 is old. Just the number. The amount of time. The gulf between a newly-twenty-something and 30 is like a hundred years. But really, it means nothing not easily surmounted by white lies and warm embraces.

"You're really 30?" kissing girl asked with wide-eyes. "Yeah." "But I'm 23." I nodded in understanding. "Would it be better if I was 26?" "Yeah, 26." And then we went at it.

Sunday still brings morning after breakfast with friends. Australian waitresses throw bad vibes at those ordering limeade. Chorizo, eggs, beans and toast. And while we all have new late night war stories to tell, they aren't so different that I feel a change.

This is a pretty good place to be right now, this thirty thing. Maybe the last three decades don't fit into the mold everyone told us we had to cram ourselves into, but that doesn't mean we did it wrong.

If I did it any other way, I wouldn't be me.

Matt Worley can just take it or leave it.